Hybrid Ministry

By Nick ClasonBusiness Religion & Spirituality Christianity Technology Marketing

Hybrid Ministry episodes

October 19, 2023 Episode 067: 🔮 The Future of Church Youth Ministry 🔮
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
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DESCRIPTION
⛪ In this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show we want to explore the Future of Youth Ministry in the Local Church.
We’re going to lean into the idea, and namesake of our show, and truly unpack the idea of: “Hybrid Ministry”
😡 Additionally, I’m going to answer the question: Does God Hate Social Media?
👌 And give you 3 Practical Tips that you can begin implementing into your student ministry space: TODAY
🔓The Church needs to unlock & unleash the next generation.
They are the church of now.
And Gone are the days of the one-size-fits all approaches to youth ministries.
🎨 It’s about learning and finding where youth people are, embracing diversity and creativity.
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
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TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/067
//BRACKETS
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-big-game-food-bracket/winter/the-big-game-8544.html
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/world%27s-greatest-donut/games/food-8745.html
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/the-student-ministry-bracket-of-epic-things/games-3974.html
//SCULPT IT
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/sculpt-it/games/humor-8503.html
//SOCIAL CHALLENGE PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYRk3l4M-4&list=PL_FbsNmRvDjempodvm_5FsqwakX6OidCd
//SPIRITUAL RESOURCES
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/l6cp97ufmwn8gfpfkxbte/h?rlkey=s5hb09c6d6x1u9iqcdz5j1aya&dl=0
//DUCK, DUCK, TRIVIA
https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/duck-duck-trivia/trivia-8705.html
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-02:03 The Future of Church Youth Ministry
02:03-09:08 What does Hybrid Ministry mean?
09:08-17:29 The Biblical Basis for Digital Expressions of Church
17:29-29:48 3 Ways to Invest in your Online Presence
29:48-36:25 The Challenge of a Strong Digital Presence
✍️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
Nick Clason (00:00):
In this episode, we are going to be exploring the question, does God hate us using social media? We're also going to be looking at unpacking and exploring and talking about the future of the church and the future of youth ministry. And finally, we are going to help lean into this idea of hybrid ministry. What is it? How do we implement it? What are the downsides of it? And lastly, we are going to offer three practical tips to help you win in your church and in your student ministry. And as always, there will be game ideas because that's just a part of the thing. The church is at this crossroads where they need to look at unlock and unleash the next generation because the next generation is the church of today, not the church of the future. Gone are the days of the one size fits all youth ministries, and so we need to help explore and unlock for you what's going to work in your context.
Nick Clason (01:03):
It's about us learning diversity, creativity, and leaning into the individuality of each and every one of our students, and to help do that, to help lean into the creativity. This is why I believe that the digital space is such a great opportunity for us. In fact, I have a done for you resource if you are just kind of floundering and have no idea where to go, and that's what we talked about in this video that's going to be linked right here at the top of the screen, TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube because we are going to help you navigate the best social media to go all in on your context as well as give you a free ebook that's linked right down here below in the description to help you navigate social media for your church and for your student ministry. But without any further ado, let's dive into this episode, the future of the church, the future of youth ministry, and what exactly is hybrid ministry.
Nick Clason (02:02):
Let's go. Well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. If you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Nick Clason. I am a almost 13 year youth ministry veteran, currently living and working in the D F W Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I am on a mission to help churches and youth ministries realize their potential for what they can do with digital ministry and in the digital space. In fact, that's why I have this entire podcast, this entire YouTube channel. In fact, if you didn't know, we are a podcast, so you can check out the show notes for link to our full [email protected], but you might be asking what even is hybrid ministry? What even does that mean? And it's a little bit of a made up word I would say, but the idea of a hybrid thing, I think about it as a football fan. Think about Teem Hill of the New Orleans Saints, right? He's a hybrid style player. He can play,
Nick Clason (02:59):
He can get under center, he can snap the ball and throw it, but he's also got some kind of tight end skills, some kind of H back type skills. Or as an old timey Colts fan, Dallas Clark was a great hybrid or H back style of player. He didn't fit into a one size fits all mold. And that's really my heart behind what I think hybrid ministry is another really great example. I've used it before, so if you're a long time listener, you've maybe heard it, but the idea of Home Depot when I am a customer, I am a customer of Home Depot and so if on any given Saturday I'm just feeling Super dad and I want to throw on my cargo shorts and my new balance shoes and just go peruse the aisles of Home Depot, I can do that. I can experience Home Depot in a physical sense.
Nick Clason (03:47):
However, at the same time, if I don't have time to do that and I just want to place an order online, I can jump on their app and I can do that as well. But the third option is probably my favorite is a hybrid relationship with Home Depot where I grab my cell phone, I download their app while I'm in the store, I search for the thing I need, it tells me the exact aisle and bay number and location of my thing and I can walk straight there. I have a digital relationship with Home Depot while I am physically in the store at the physical location. And I think in a lot of cases that's the way that our churches need to start just thinking about because in a lot of times, especially with Covid, we did not have the physical as an option. And so we all moved to digital and it was an amazing opportunity.
Nick Clason (04:41):
I think a lot of churches learned a lot. I think a lot of churches are still doing things now as a result of what happened during the pandemic, but now as restrictions have lifted and people have gone more and more back into church on a regular basis, churches have been like that stunk. Let's go back to what we know and there is so much value in what can happen in an interpersonal relationship. Please, I want you to hear that from me. I want you to know my heart, but I also believe that, I mean, you know this right there are 168 hours per week in any given week, but most churches really only focus on the one or two hours that you have a programmed scheduled event. It's like the evening news or it's, it's like sitcom appointment television. If you want to know what's going on in this series, then you better be here at 10:30 AM and that's the only time that you're ever going to know what we're talking about.
Nick Clason (05:37):
And honestly, let's be honest, churches, that is a really selfish and kind of vain approach. The only way for people to grow is to make your thing appointment calendaring in their life, and that's just not the world that we live in anymore. You're going to have people do that and because you do have some people do that, you think everybody should adopt that approach. Meanwhile, there are people who do want to grow in their faith and do want to have a relationship with you and your church. However, their schedule may not allow for it. Like I know this coming Saturday we are hosting a national day of youth ministry volunteer training by D Y M, shout out d y m, but the problem is my boys have their very first game of T-ball and so unfortunately my wife can't, as a super rockstar volunteer that she is, she's not going to be able to make a portion of that training.
Nick Clason (06:29):
Does that mean that she doesn't care about youth ministry and teenagers and her role in our church? Not at all. She's busy. She's got something else going on and so we always have to think and accommodate for that. And I think a lot of times churches are just like, you need to prioritize this. And that's true. Hearing me say that I believe that our people need to prioritize the things of God. However, I also believe that we are now in a time and in a space in 2023 and beyond where we can offer things to people that they can consume, that they can learn, that they can come to understand, that they can gather teachings about the importance of what our church is doing, what our church is offering in a hybrid type of moment. They have an in-person relationship with our church, but they can lean into the digital and I think a lot of churches are approaching digital as the outreach arm and that's really all it does.
Nick Clason (07:24):
And then once you've come and decided to commit to the church, then you have to shift to completely in person. And I just want to tell you, I don't live that way. I got a speeding ticket last week. It was awful. I was going way too fast in zone. That should have been a much faster speed limit, but it's a speed trap. And after paying a $346 yesterday, I had the option to call to go in person or to go online to remedy that. Guess which option I chose? Just like all of you, I chose the online option. If there's a way to do it where it can be more convenient and it doesn't hinder the relationship, and I think that's what we need to do. So hybrid, it's not just about in-person or it's not just about digital. It's about finding a way to marry those two environments so that people can have a holistic and much more robust relationship with your church.
Nick Clason (08:24):
Hey, listen, I hope you're getting value out of this video and we're going to continue on and we have all kinds of other videos like this, and so it would be incredible if you hit the subscribe button so that you get notified every single time we drop a video like this and listen, it costs you nothing but a really does help us out. So if you would like this video and maybe even share this along with a friend or someone else that you know who's a youth pastor or a church communications person because we are on a mission to help churches lean into the hybrid side of their ministry. But let's move on. Let's answer next question. Does God hate social media and what is there if, is there a biblical basis for leaning into digital and hybrid ministry? Let's check it out. So I know a lot of pastors, I know a lot of people, I know a lot of leaders who encourage people to lean away from digital media, social media as a means of discipleship and a means of growth.
Nick Clason (09:23):
And I think in a lot of cases that that's really a healthy practice for a lot of people. I think with unfettered, unfiltered access to just doom scrolling social media time and time and time and time and time again, which I actually didn't mean to turn. Oh look, there's me. I didn't mean to turn my phone on doing that, but when people just do that over and over and over again, I know that it is not healthy. There are some definite downfalls and some definite payrolls to doing that. However, I also know that I need this thing to keep track of my calendar. I need that thing to read email. I need that thing to track my receipts. I need that thing to get me somewhere in a turn by turn. G P SS navigation system. That thing right there is where my wife and Mike's grocery list lives.
Nick Clason (10:14):
It lives in a digital format on our phone that we both have access to like a shared list. And so this thing is going nowhere. And so instead of just coaching people to throw it in the fire and be done with it, while that may be what some people need to do, I think we also need to begin to think about how can we help coach people through having a cell phone? Yes, there are bad and evil things on cell phones. If you have a teenage boy, a teenage girl, the pitfalls of pornography and what is available to them in their pocket at any given moment is dangerous. However, that's not going anywhere for them and unless mom and dad want to rip that away from them, they are going to have a cell phone. So how do we help them walk through and wade through the difficulties of that reality while also realizing that in many cases this is a necessary commodity for most people in America in 2023 and beyond?
Nick Clason (11:22):
I do actually believe that the Bible speaks about this and one of my favorite kind of passages of it, obviously it's not directly talking about cell phones and digital media because that didn't exist, but the principle I do believe exists. So in Jeremiah chapter 29, which is everyone's favorite bookstore, Bible verse Jeremiah 29 11, we're going to read it here in just a second, but actually starting in verse five is where we're going to start reading so that you for perhaps the first time in your life can get to hear Jeremiah 29 11 in its full context. But Jeremiah is writing to the Babylonian people who are in exile in, or I'm sorry, he's running to the Jewish people who are in exile in Babylon. So God's people are in a foreign land and he addresses their concerns. Here's what he says. I want you to build homes.
Nick Clason (12:16):
I want you to plan to stay. I want you to plant gardens, eat the food that they produce, marry and have children, and then find spouses for them so that they may have many grandchildren. Multiply, don't dwindle away and work for the peace and the prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare and it will determine then ultimately your welfare. Verse eight says, this is what the Lord of the heavens armies, the God of Israel says, do not let your prophets and fortune tellers, tellers who are with you in Babylon trick you do not listen to their dreams because they're telling you lies in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. This is what the Lord says. You'll be in Babylon for 70 years, but then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised and I will bring you home again for I know the plans.
Nick Clason (13:11):
Here it is, guys. Verse 11, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, the plans for good, not for disaster. To give you a future and hope. I think that what God is basically saying in this verse is he's saying, invest in the place in which I have placed you. And he's saying, embrace the things of the land, of the place of the climate, of the context of which I have placed you and to the Jewish people that meant plant gardens, intermarry, have children, have grandchildren, pray for the prosperity of Babylon because that will determine and dictate the prosperity of you and your life. And in a lot of the same ways, I believe that technology is the opportunity for us to enter into a digital landscape and a digital Babylon, so to speak. And so we have the chance to lean into it.
Nick Clason (14:01):
We have the chance to go towards what the people of our day are using and navigating, and we have the chance to redeem it. We have the chance to bring light into it. We have the chance to sprinkle in and even more than just sprinkle, but fully embrace and bring the great message of hope of the gospel into a digital and hybrid space. And most of the times, the pastors that I have interacted with are saying cell phones are bad and evil because most people have really bad habits with it. And so they're saying, so just don't do it. You don't need it. You don't need a digital Bible. Go get your paper Bible. I'm just saying, listen, if you're a youth pastor and you're ministering to a 13 year old who just got a new cell phone, that's really not going to play very well to them.
Nick Clason (14:50):
I'm not saying that we should just cater to people. Discipleship is difficult and often we get the root word discipline from it, and so it's going to require some hard and difficult conversations. But all that being said, we are not going to successfully push people away from it and just I, listen, I get it just because, oh, well, should we cater to bad habits? Absolutely not. But there's a lot of good that can happen on here. Right now, I play fantasy football through my cell phone because of fantasy football. I have connections with people that I have worked with in the past, my family who lives in three continents on this globe. We play fantasy football together and we connect through this. My church staff right now, we have 30 people on our church staff playing fantasy football that I am help kind of spearheading and leading, and that's helping bring about some comradery among our staff.
Nick Clason (15:47):
I read the Bible this morning on the Bible app through a plan that I subscribe to on my phone a lot of times when I don't have, and I read that on my iPad, and if I don't have my iPad, I will read it on my phone. One of my favorite apps on here is the Bible verse memory app, right? My point is that there's a lot of good that can happen through this, and I think we a lot of times want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So let's lean in. Let's teach people how to navigate and make wise decisions and choices as they interact with digital and cell phone media. So the question that you're probably asking then if you're youth pastor, church communications person, is how do I invest in an online presence? What do I do? And I want to let you know before we dive into that, that if any of this is interesting to you, if any of this is ringing a bell, any of this is perking your interest that we have a website, hybridministry.xyz, and this episode is episode 67.
Nick Clason (16:48):
So if you go to hybridministry.xyz slash 0 6 7 link is also down below in the description along with my 43 ideas for how to lean into digital ministry. You can get full transcripts. That's one thing that we provide completely for free in every single episode in case you're out on a run and you're hearing this and you're like, dude, I need some of that. I need to take some notes and filter some of my thoughts around some of what we're listening to in this episode. Great, we got that for you. Link in the description, hybridministry.xyz/067, but let's explore and let's answer and tackle this question. How do you invest into your online presence? I have three ideas for you to help invest more into your online presence. One idea is just up your game in your social media and your digital media presence.
Nick Clason (17:41):
And so that can be all kinds of different things like your social media. Does that mean that your church or your student ministry has a pop Instagram account? I mean maybe, or is it that you launch a relevant YouTube channel maybe? Or is it that you're surfing on the TikTok trends out there on that app? TikTok could be, but whatever it is, there is an opportunity to weave in social media not only to your church attenders, but also to people out there in the world who don't know anything about you, your church or your student ministry. But my ultimate number one recommendation, especially if you're in youth ministry, and if not I still recommend this for a lot of churches, is YouTube. And what I actually have is a link in the description for how you can launch and start a YouTube channel for under $100, which by the way in 2023 is completely unheard of.
Nick Clason (18:33):
So you should definitely get in on that. But what it's going to do is it's going to help you utilize and start a channel simply using your cell phone upping and leveling up your game with some microphone gear and maybe some basic lighting to just get the ball rolling so that you can have a YouTube channel. And the reason why I believe YouTube is such a strong contender is especially if you're a youth pastor, 95% of teenagers claim to use and utilize YouTube. Meanwhile, people are getting on there and think about it, how do you engage and interact with YouTube? You probably hopped on there recently and said, how do I fix this clogged sink in my guest bathroom? Right? People are getting on there and asking specific questions, and while you may be trying to figure out how to unclog your sink, a 13 year old might be saying, why does God send good people like my grandmother to hell?
Nick Clason (19:27):
And you as a youth pastor have an opportunity to address and answer that particular and specific question. Now, tell me that that's not an amazing opportunity. We posted a video on our church's social media, our church's YouTube, the beginning of the school year called How to Ruin Your School Year. I think maybe we did the opposite of it, how to Not Ruin Your School Year, and it got like 150 views, and our audience is really not that big on YouTube. And I mean we have at least 150 students on our role and on our roster, but I know that not all of our students are subscribed to our YouTube are even really paying attention to our YouTube. So those 150 views did not all come from our students. My question is, would you like an opportunity as a youth pastor to have greater kingdom impact than you have currently right now in your local physical context?
Nick Clason (20:21):
Maybe the answer is no, but I would wonder why the answer to that would be no. Sure, you can't nuance and go as deep, dude, that was like a 12 minute video. I had enough ability to flesh things out and flesh out ideas and explain things fully and thoroughly that you might have to leave on the cutting room floor of say, a more short form vertical video-based TikTok or YouTube short or something like that. There is opportunity really there is out there to answer specific questions of teenagers. And YouTube is powered by Google the number one largest search engine of the world, and people consider YouTube to be the second largest search engine in the world. So put answers to the questions that people are going to the second largest search engine in the world in there, trying to get answers to big matters of faith and existential realities.
Nick Clason (21:15):
You have a chance to do that. And like I said, link in the description down here that will help you get your YouTube channel up the ground with just a minimal amount of gear talking head just like this video into a cell phone camera. The other idea, the third idea that I have for you are some hybrid based games if you're in youth ministry, the value of games. But one of my favorite things we do is brackets. So if March madness style, if you're a sports person, you got 64 teams, we'll do a 16 team bracket, we'll rank things kind of arbitrarily with our own sort of value-based ranking system. We have a platypus mascot in our student ministry and that was voted on competing against 16 other animals. So we had a yak and we had a lamb, which was a 16 seed, which almost won and upset the number one seed a lion.
Nick Clason (22:11):
We had a baboon on there, and what ultimately won was the platypus. I think that's the generation of Finn. And for talking one of my favorite brackets, I actually have a couple on download youth ministry. I'll put the link to those in descriptions if you want to go check 'em out or create your own. But we will do a Super Bowl food or big game day food bracket so that students can self-select what foods, what snacks are going to be at the Super Bowl party, and just a couple of weeks at the time of this recording. So probably by the time this drops, it'll be happening live. Feel free to go check it out at Cross Creek students. That's all of our handles on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, but we are going to be launching the world's greatest donut bracket, and it's going to be students selecting the world's greatest donut.
Nick Clason (22:58):
Here's the cool thing though. We just paid for, I don't know, a couple hundred dollars banner to be installed in one of our walls that we can reuse and replicate every single time we run a bracket. We'll probably do two or three of these a year where we can hang it in our physical space. So as students walk in, they'll see it, but then the push is for them to jump on Instagram and cast their vote, jump on social media and let it be known what they're going to be voting for. And so that's a way to be hybrid. We're talking about it, announcing it and making it a big deal in our physical space, and we're giving students even a chance to vote physically on a piece of paper, but then we're also pushing it towards digital media. Those things get a ton of traction in our context.
Nick Clason (23:47):
People talk about it, especially on staff people like which one won? How did you rank that one that it incites a little bit of faux riot. Okay. Another thing is we will do a lot of, we'll do some things called social challenges. I'll link the playlist that we do on that YouTube, but we will grab a couple of students every single Wednesday night, film them on camera, and then post that to YouTube. We'll clip it up into a short, and that'll be something that we can post on shorts as well, but that gives students a chance to compete in certain challenges or taskmaster type challenges. Again, that's a way to use the students in your physical space and promote and pump them up on your digital platforms. And other things you can do game wise is just create some sort of contest where there's a drawing contest or a sculpture contest or a dancing contest or whatever.
Nick Clason (24:42):
You can post those on social media and let people vote, cast their vote. Did you like A or B better, right? Like gingerbread houses or we'll do Plato sculpture things. I have a game on D y M called Sculpt It, and then we've done before. It's really fun. But we post all those on social media and then we let people cast their vote for the winner, and then the next time we get together the next week or that following Sunday, we'll give away a prize to the winning team or the winning table for their contribution in that game. Those are just ways to marry your in-person with your online and make it more hybrid. Make it last beyond the one hour a week that you have your students in your student ministry. Another idea, so that's just upping your digital presence game. And hey, like I said, link in the description for 40 ideas, 40 done for you ideas in vertical, vertical video based content like TikTok, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels that you can start adopting now.
Nick Clason (25:39):
And all of those ideas, by the way, are ideas that are recyclable. So for example, you can use the same, I just posted a game. We're calling it telepathy, but you can name it whatever you want to name it. I got it from some guys on YouTube shorts who call it wavelength, but one guy's thinking of a number and another guy's asking him for certain categories of things. So like the one I just posted, they asked for candy sport, clothing brand and day of the week, and then you give an item that is that number that's in your head. So my buddy was thinking of number three, and she said, candy, and he said, black licorice, which I think it's probably lower than a three if you ask me, but that's just me. And then she said, okay, how about sport? And he said, golf.
Nick Clason (26:23):
And then she said, okay, how about sport or athletic wear? And he said, new balance. And then she said, how about day of the week? And he said, Tuesday, she guessed that the number was four, but it was really three in his head, right? That's just a fun game. You can do a little bit of post-production editing if you want, even if you have no editing skills, you can do most of that on your cell phone to make that happen. By the way, I have a complete ebook, another one on how to post a TikTok from scratch. I'll also link that down below in the description. But all these are ways for you to just start taking steps to up your game and your social media. All right, the other idea, what about, so that's digital presence. What about web access, right? Is your website up to date?
Nick Clason (27:03):
That's all I'm asking. Is your website up to date? And there's this idea, do we push info to people or do we ask them to pull it for themselves? And I believe that we should do both, but I believe that you can push info, but people should always know that the answer to every single one of their questions lies on the website. So yes, send that Tuesday email reminding them about the fundraiser coming up on Saturday, but let them know that in the email, Hey, all this info is available on our website so that when Friday night rolls around and the mom and dad are thinking about how to get their kids where they need to go on Saturday, and they know that one of the kids is going to the fundraiser at church, they have to figure out where they are, what time they have to drop them off.
Nick Clason (27:46):
They don't have to go dig back through their email that they've gotten 125 other spam emails between Tuesday and Friday night. They can just go straight to your website. Is your church website up to date? Listen, people live in an on demand world. They're not relying on your email to give them the information that they need. They want to be informed, but then they also, they want to know or to go to get what they need information wise. So make sure your website is up to date. And then the third hybrid idea I have are just simply like individual tools. I'll link a few of these in the description down below. But in our student ministry, like I said, we did a video called Three Ways to Ruin Your School Year, and it was basically don't connect with God. And so in the reverse, we gave them three connections with God ideas, memorizing scripture, reading the Bible, and spending time in prayer.
Nick Clason (28:46):
And we created just a downloadable resource for them to use and utilize on their phone. It also pointed them and push them towards apps or YouVersion, Bible reading plans. So if you want to see some of those, you can check those out. But those are just ideas of things that you can help put in your student's hand. You can print physical copies if you want. You can also offer a digital version of it on your website or in an email download. And if you have an actual communications marketing department, you can put those behind Handshake websites where people have to put their name and email in, and you can use that to start building lists and things like that, which is a really good marketing practice. But if you don't want to know how to do that and you don't have a communications department, you can just put free resources on your website for people to grab, however and whenever.
Nick Clason (29:35):
But what about the challenge? What is difficult about doing this? I hear you on the other side of this video. Don't have time. No way I can do this. Great. We're going to address that in the next section. Look, I get it. This is a lot. And as I'm explaining this, you're like, bro, I don't have time to do any of this. I know it's a lot of work. In fact, there's a tension, an inherent tension that will lie when you choose to enter into a hybrid space. The best example I have is the church I worked at before here. I started out on the very first day of Covid. I don't recommend that as a strategy, but I dunno how any of you can avoid that if you're taking a new job. But because I started on the first day of Covid, the very first thing that I did that we did, that our church did, that our student ministry did was launch a YouTube channel.
Nick Clason (30:23):
Well, they already had a YouTube channel, but launch a YouTube show. We called it unscripted and most churches during Covid, it was a in-person programming, youth ministry replacement. And dude, it was innovative. It was one of a kind. I really did not see a lot of other churches doing a full on show direct to camera, not just camera in the back of the room. There was a lot of power behind it. There was a lot of creative team members, videographers, contractors that were working on it. But then, as you know, slowly covid started to kind of wind down in-person, became more and more of a thing, and we started having more and more students back on campus and back in the room, but unscripted didn't go anywhere. In fact, we wanted to let unscripted serve as the small group teaching element, teaching moment in multiple in-person small group meetings in various host home locations throughout the city that lent itself better for geography.
Nick Clason (31:33):
We were in a mega church, and so a lot of people drove many, many miles to our church. And so we could put houses 20 minutes away from the campus, but closer to where students lived. We could also offer groups on multiple days of the week as students are super, super duper busy. It was a really, really, and because Covid had ushered us into this moment, it allowed us the chance to sort of rethink and reinvent how we disseminated our teaching and got the Bible into the hands of our small group leaders and into the hands of our children. But more and more people were clamoring for on-campus stuff, especially in light of Covid. And so this tension between is this good for the show? Is this good for online? Is this good for YouTube versus is this what's best for in the room? Became this tension and ultimately became insurmountable to the point where the show got canceled.
Nick Clason (32:25):
Now, the downside, the real thing, the real rub you got to answer is we have kids sitting right in front of us every single week. Is YouTube the best strategy for those kids? That's probably got to be your number one priority, but the challenge is that there's going to be a tension between the online and the in-person constantly. And it's going to be so easy when it feels so insurmountable that you just say, forget it. I can't worry about the online anymore. I just got to focus on the in-person. And I don't necessarily have a formula or an answer for you, but what I do know is that there were some times where we did some things where we faced a challenge and we were tempted to just be like, you know what? Forget it. That's not the priority here. And we said, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do that.
Nick Clason (33:19):
We're going to lean in and we're going to figure this thing out. And so one of my favorite things, in fact, I have a game that sort of tried to mimic it. It's not as good though because it's not like a full on show with our youth pastors and our personalities, but it's called Duck Duck Trivia, and it's where you play duck, duck goose in a circle. But in the meantime, there's a trivia game happening on the screen. I have it on D y m, but we did a version of it with our show. And anytime you heard a squeak with one of the rubber ducks that we had, people had to get up and play duck, duck goose in the room while also paying attention to the screen and playing trivia. I created a sheet, a downloadable note sheet for them to keep track of and take notes of.
Nick Clason (33:59):
The point I'm making with all that is that there was a way to win in the room and win online, and it was epic. You know what I mean? But you got to spend more time and you got to think outside the box. You can't just throw a four corners game on the screen and be like, that's going to crush on YouTube. It just might not. The other challenge of it is just going to be a time constraints challenge, right? Digital media, video editing, graphic design soaks up a lot of time. And if you're a lone ranger, if you're a one man band, if you're doing this on your own, bro, I get it, you're going to be spending a lot of time on it. Again, the temptation is going to be to just throw it out, throw the baby out with the bath water, don't need it anymore.
Nick Clason (34:42):
But if you lean into it, you can find some good on the other side of the mountain there. The fact is, you just have to value it. Your church has to value it. Your supervisor has to value you spending your time on it and notice and point out and know that it is making a difference, even if it's not seen and felt immediately right away. And that's the, that's the third shadow side. You have to determine your win with this because the payoff for digital is not immediate. And you have to answer questions like, is this to reach outsiders? Is this to serve and help mature our insiders? What is the real reason behind this? But here's my thing, because of what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 29, I do believe we should invest in where we are. So I think out of this video, I'd love to encourage you, I'd even love to hear from you, comment below, but what's one next action step that you're going to take today?
Nick Clason (35:33):
Maybe it's just like, you know what? I'm going to stop just only posting announcement graphics to my Instagram. I'm going to start leaning in a little bit to an Instagram strategy. Maybe it's I'm going to launch a YouTube channel. Hit that link in description, a hundred dollars, YouTube starter kit, whatever the case might be, what is going to be your next step, but just start now. But listen, remember, grab my surefire resource 40 done for you ideas to help you just navigate this link in the description or in the show notes, hybridministry.xyz, and right here, this is why every single church needs a strong digital presence. I flesh it out, I explain it. I give you my strategy in this video. It's linked right here on the screen. Go check that out or go check out this YouTube playlist video teaching you how to start your YouTube channel from scratch. But we're trying to make digital ministry accessible, reachable possible, so don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.
37 min
October 12, 2023 Episode 066: 💸 The Surprising 4th Design Tool: Instagram Stories, a Design Option? 🚀
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
💸BUDGET & TIME FRIENDLY DESIGN PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
DESCRIPTION
Are you ready to elevate your design game to a whole new level? Look no further than Instagram Stories – the surprisingly powerful 4th design tool that will revolutionize your creative process. In this captivating video, we unlock the hidden potential of Instagram Stories as a secret design tool that will unleash your creative genius.
Discover how to utilize the dynamic features, engaging elements, and captivating visuals of Instagram Stories to create stunning designs with ease. From interactive polls and quizzes to eye-catching animations and stickers, this versatile platform offers endless possibilities for designers and artists alike.
Immerse yourself in a world of boundless inspiration as we delve into the unique ways Instagram Stories can enhance your design projects. Learn how to leverage the platform's vast library of filters, fonts, and effects to create captivating visual narratives that capture your audience's attention and leave a lasting impression.
Join us on this thrilling journey as we unveil the remarkable potential of Instagram Stories as a powerful design tool, empowering you to take your creativity to unimaginable heights. Elevate your designs, captivate your viewers, and unlock new dimensions of artistic expression through this revolutionary platform.
Don't miss out on this opportunity to tap into the secrets of Instagram Stories as a design powerhouse. Subscribe to our channel now and stay tuned for more exciting videos that will inspire and empower you in your creative endeavors.
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv
TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/066
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-02:23 Design Tool #4 is Instagram?
02:23-03:05 Why Every Student Ministry NEEDS a Strong Digital Presence
03:05-10:41 How to Hack Instagram and Make it work for on-demand Graphics
10:41-15:19 The Top 3 Ways to Use Instagram in Youth Groups for Design
15:19-17:37 The Shadow Side of Instagram
✍️TRANSCRIPTS
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
Nick Clason (00:02):
In this episode, we're going to explore the surprising design tool that you probably didn't even know about or think about that is already sitting as an app on your cell phone. Yes, I'm talking about Instagram and the Instagram story editor. When you are in a pinch and you need a vertical based graphic or you need something that can be cropped down to a square size graphic or even potentially narrowing it down to a widescreen graphic, you can pop open your phone into the Instagram story editor and create amazing looking crisp graphics. And so in this video, we are going to explore the world of the Instagram Stories editor. We're going to look at some of its features, how you can implement and the downside of it. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey everyone. My name is Nick Clason. I am a youth pastor in Dallas, Texas, and I have been doing youth ministry for 12 and a half, 13 years.
(00:59):
And every church, except for the very first church I had straight out of college, that was just a part-time job. I've had Instagram and I helped implement it in some churches. I've taken over it over account in other churches. But one of my favorite features of Instagram is the Instagram stories editor. And I've used it in a lot of different cases and a lot of different scenarios when I've been in a pinch or I've just really needed something on the fly on my phone that I can pull, open my phone real fast and just kind of make it happen. And so I love Instagram. It of course has some downsides and it has some shortcomings. Just like every other feature that we've looked at in this playlist. We've looked at PowerPoint, we've looked at Canva, we've looked at Adobe Express, and now we're looking at Instagram is probably the weakest of the four.
(01:48):
But it is great when you just need something quick on the fly and that you can make on your phone and you can get to it relatively accessibly. And so that is why I like to use it and that's why I included it. And in most cases, if you already have Instagram installed on your phone, if not, it's free to do. You can have it very accessibly in your pocket and you can make amazing looking graphics in just about no time. And hey, I am on a mission for every single youth ministry in America to understand that they need to have a strong digital presence. Don't believe me. Check out this video that I have linked right here, what every student ministry needs and why. Every student needs a strong digital presence. And if you're thinking, Hey, I don't have time for that, don't worry. Because in that episode, I have a surefire resource to help you build out a full digital social media strategy as well as a strong just digital strategy in general. And so you don't have time, that's okay. We got 40 resources basically done for you. So check that out. That is a free resource to you in that video. Also linked here in the show notes.
Nick Clason (02:59):
But let's dive in and let's explore the world of Instagram stories here together. Alright, so right here on my screen, you're going to be able to see some screenshots from my Instagram. And so first and foremost, if you open it up and you're already following people, you're going to see some stuff on your feed and stuff like that. But right up here in the top left corner is where stories live and stories exist, and all the way across the top here are additional stories. And so when you are adding a story, you can do one of two things. You can either hit this plus button up on your profile thing or you can swipe your phone to the left, and then you're going to now be able to see what is directly in front of you. Took screenshots. You all can see my other side of this setup, which is disastrous in my guest room.
(03:51):
And we had someone dog sit this weekend and it's still not cleaned up, so that's cool. But once you're in here, you can post a photo. So you can either upload a photo directly here from this upload thing, or you can take a photo of what is right in front of you. Either are great options or you can go over here to this left menu, which has multiple different options as well. So you have the create feature, which is one of my favorites. And when you're on the create feature down here in the right hand corner, you have different options of colors. So you can cycle through different colors that you may want to use. You can also scroll through and use some of these shout out things so they have Happy birthday, thanks, happy anniversary. And you can change the look of it. At the top here with this little dice thing, they have a GIF option, so you can search gifs and use gifs.
(04:50):
And then they also have a, on this day, five years ago type of thing, which it looks like on this day, a year ago, I was asking if 40 spam calls in one day is a lot, bro, I was getting so many spam calls a year ago. We were applying for a new mortgage, and so my number got out there and I was literally just getting call after call after call. My wife was too, it was a lot. Let's go through and talk about the create feature. In the create feature. You can tap to type something, and so you can put it in there, type it out, and while you're there also you can change font types, so you can, oh, that's weird. So yeah, so here's all your different font types when you are in here. And so I'm typing one out right now, hybrid ministry.
(05:47):
So you can change the font type, you can adjust the background, you can take the background off, you can change the, there's all kinds of different things that you can do. But now I got all these kind of graphics, I got all these different options, and I have just a story. It's created, you can see it here on the side of the screen. If you are wanting to use it on Instagram, you would post it right here with my stories, but if not, you can go up here to these three little dots and you can, in addition to drawing on it, like annotating or whatever, you can also save it to your device and that's where you can save it and go out and use it in different spots. And so the way that this one currently, this hybrid ministry one is clipped, I could clip it down in a PowerPoint maybe, or Photoshop or even just the phone editor.
(06:43):
The photo editor on my own phone. I could crop it down to a 16 by nine, export it and use it on screen. I don't know how crisp that's going to be narrowing it down and zooming in that much, but it is conceivably an option. It's probably not optimal to do it that way. Another thing is you could flip your phone sideways and design this way, design on the side, and then save it. It's going to save as vertical, but once you have it in your photo editor, you can flip it and you could use it that way as well. I've actually never done that, but as I'm talking it through, that could be an option. So beyond the create feature over here, we also have, looks like it's giving me, oh, those are just filter types beyond the create option. Like I said, you also have a few other options over here.
(07:31):
And one that I want to point out is the layout feature. So when I click layout, it gives you a handful of different layout type options, and that's a grid based thing. So you can do four by four, two by two, you can do side by side three, or you could do six all on here. So that's something that could come in handy at a time as well. They have hands free, that's mostly just for, that's mostly just for filming stuff on stories, so you're probably not going to use that as a design feature. And then right here they have the dual feature, which is them. Instagram is notorious for ripping features off of other social platforms. So this is them ripping off of B reel and they're front facing camera and self-facing camera. So you may use that again, you could use that if in your church or student minister you're looking to do some sort of series that is talking about being real and you want to use the features or the looks of the BeReal platform, you could use that one right there on Instagram. So that's all the menu options there on the side of the Instagram stories
Nick Clason (08:54):
Editor. Now, once you are ready and willing to start uploading, so I'll go to my hybrid ministry thing here, and now that I'm ready to upload, you can also add more text on the screen. You can adjust how big it is. You can adjust the left center, right center, all those things. You can also go here to the stickers thing. And there are all kinds of different locations. And so I'm just going to show you this graphic here on the screen. And some of them are more for social media for sure, but you can do little sticker things, little slider things. And if you download them as, and if you're using this as a design tool that you're going to also post on social media or on your screens, they're not going to be interactive like this. But this is also one of my favorite features for just hybridizing your ministry because you can do a lot of things here on the Instagram Stories editor or even in some of these you can use in reels.
(09:55):
And that's one of my favorite ways, like I said, to hybridize my ministry because I may preach a sermon on Wednesday night and then I may post a clip on Thursday and I may add a slider bar or a voting option or something like that, just letting students interact with the piece of content that I have created. So that's just a little pro tip, bonus tip for you. So, so far, if you've learned something about Instagram in this video, would you just hit that like button and maybe even that subscribe button because we're going to be dropping all kinds of stuff, not just about design, but about hybrid ministry for you and in your future. So go ahead, do that now and let's move on after this. And let's start talking about different ways that you can implement these graphics from Instagram in your student ministry and in your ministry in your church.
(10:42):
All right, so here are a few ideas of ways that I have implemented the Instagram Stories editor into just my day-to-day life in student ministry. Here are also some ideas that you could use in your ministry, and there are going to be things that I'm not thinking of. So even as I'm just stream of consciousness, giving out some thoughts, it might spark within you ideas. So I want to encourage you, be thinking, be creative, take notes. But I use the Instagram stories editor a fair bit just for social media posts. If I'm doing a carousel type post or something where I'm just going to post a text-based type of thing to my Instagram feed or Facebook feed, I'll go into the stories editor if I am in a pinch for time, and I'll throw something together and I'll download it from my device, and then I'll just go in and I'll post it.
(11:29):
And because when I download it, it's a full 16 or nine by 16 vertical based graphic, it's going to crop out a fair bit at the top and bottom, but that's okay. And so just when I'm building that design, I know that another thing I use is every single week on Monday, we do a meme Monday post and I post nine to 10 memes in an Instagram carousel based post. But the thing that is interesting is that on the first post of that, the first photo of that, I post just a static graphic that says Meme Monday. And I have a little design, I use the little calendar emoji, and I do meme all big and Monday with a background color on it and then the calendar in there. But I do a little bit of a different one every single week. And I literally, right before I post all the memes, I go in there, I create a graphic in the Instagram stories editor, I download it, and then I post it along with my carousel posts.
(12:29):
So that's another way that you can just use it. And again, I could sit down and design something in Photoshop, but quite frankly, I forget every single week and once Monday rolls around, I'm like, oh, snap. I need a graphic. So I just hop into the Instagram stories editor and do it. Now, since I'm already in the Instagram stories editor, I do it on my student ministry account. That way when I'm done creating it, I actually post it. I literally post the full slide, it says me Monday. And then to link it to make sure that they know to link it, I will post on the next Instagram stories slide. I will, after I have posted the post on the feed, I will go to that post on the feed. I will share it to my stories. I'll share the second one because the first one's going to be that exact same slide.
(13:16):
So I'll share the second one. And so it'll basically be the me Monday slide in stories. And then the next slide in stories is that post that's clickable. So you can click on it and then they can go actually to the feed and see all the different memes. Another kind of tip that I do in there is I'll post a question sticker sometimes and I'll ask them, which one was your favorite meme this week? And that's just a way to bring about some engagement. I'll be honest with you, Instagram's actually one of the least used platforms in my current context. In my student ministry, we have a lot more engagement on TikTok and a lot more engagement on YouTube. So I shy away from doing that sometimes just because I don't get a lot of interaction on Instagram. So the third and final kind of way that you can utilize this is I actually created a full theme feel of a graphic for our January series that we were doing called Habits.
(14:10):
I created it in Instagram in the stories editor. And then after that, I started to use that same feel and theme on all of our graphics. And I went and I did that in Photoshop or in PowerPoint or whatever later. But I was sitting in a Sunday morning sermon, and it was January 1st, and I was like, I need to get some sort of post out today. And while the pastor was preaching, sorry, pastor Craig, I made a graphic on my phone and then I posted it. And so I didn't use Instagram exclusively in that series for graphics, but because of the limitations with which I had for Instagram, I made that graphic. And then that is what drove and dictated how and what I did for all my graphics. Moving forward in the rest of that series. We're working pretty far ahead these days, so that's not as much of a problem, but if you ever find yourself in a pinch, you can use it and utilize it.
(15:03):
Again, I built a graphic for social first and then I retrofitted it in other programs after for widescreen type of things, but it can make those things for you. So let's go ahead in this next section, let's look at the downside of Instagram. So the downside of course of Instagram is that that stories editor really only is vertical based. And so as I was saying, you could clip it down to screen, but it's a lot more work. Probably any one of the other three tools that we've offered for you is going to be a better advantage for you, especially if you're looking for just screen-based graphics. The way I would say to think about Instagram is in a pinch on your phone, social media graphics, that's your place to go, and you can make some cool looking things. But for full scale screen-based things, it's probably going to be more work for you than just applying for a pro account at Canva or just using PowerPoint, excuse me, or Google Slides on your computer that's already installed or even trying out Adobe Express.
(16:03):
And so if I were to rank these, honestly, I'd probably go Canva, PowerPoint, Adobe Express, and then Instagram. But it is a nice one to just know about and have as kind of a hack on your phone. You're out and about with a family, you forgot to post something, someone needs a graphic from you real quick. You can create something really seamless. And I think there are Canva Mobile. There's mobile for Google Slides, there's all these other things, but Instagram is a phone-based app design for phones. And so it's just the most easy to use with your thumbs. And to make it real quick, the other shadow side of it is that if you are building out a full social media strategy on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram reels, it's really only good for static type posts and JPEGs and PNGs. It is not really for video.
(16:53):
And right now vertical video is king. And so that's actually what I talk about in my episode, Instagram versus TikTok versus YouTube. So I'd love to actually have you check that out. It's going to fly up here on the screen as you're navigating how to build out a full and robust social media strategy for your church and for your youth ministry. We're going to rank those three platforms and tell you how to use them. And make sure you check out the other videos in this playlist if you haven't seen those yet. And make sure and subscribe, like Share with a Friend. We are on a mission to help the church understand that digital is a valid option. We're making digital discipleship easy and accessible. Don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.
18 min
October 05, 2023 Episode 065: 💸 Adobe Express, the 3rd option of the 4 Budget-Friendly Design Tools 🚀
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
💸BUDGET & TIME FRIENDLY DESIGN PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
DESCRIPTION
Welcome back to our four-part series on budget-friendly design options for youth pastors and church leaders! In this third installment, we're diving deep into Adobe Express and comparing it head-to-head with PowerPoint and Canva. We'll help you make an informed decision on which platform suits your ministry's design needs best.
🎨 Adobe Express Tutorial: Our onscreen tutorial will walk you through the essentials of Adobe Express, showcasing its powerful features and user-friendly interface. Whether you're a design novice or a pro, you'll find valuable tips and tricks to enhance your youth ministry materials.
💲 Pricing Comparison: Budgets matter, and we know that! We'll break down the pricing structures for Adobe Express, PowerPoint, and Canva, helping you understand which option aligns best with your financial resources.
🤔 Verdict Time: After a thorough exploration of these three design platforms, we'll deliver our honest verdict. Discover which tool offers the best value, efficiency, and creative possibilities for your youth ministry projects.
🔗 If you missed the previous episodes in this series be sure to catch up on them here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw
Don't miss out on this informative and practical guide to enhance your youth ministry's visual presence. Hit that subscribe button, like, and share with fellow youth pastors and church leaders looking to level up their design game on a budget.
Stay tuned for the final episode in our series, where we'll unveil our top design recommendations and bonus tips to supercharge your youth ministry materials. Let's make your ministry's message shine with creativity and impact!
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv
TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/065
//ADOBE EXPRESS
http://www.express.adobe.com
//ADOBE EXPRESS PRICING
https://www.adobe.com/express/pricing
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-00:57 Tool #3 Adobe Express
00:57-03:17 Why Graphic Design Even matters for Student Ministries
03:17-06:41 How to Get Started Using Adobe Express Online
06:41-12:45 How to Create a Graphic on Adobe Express
12:45-15:53 How Much does Adobe Express Cost?
15:53-18:55 The Verdict: PowerPoint vs. Canva vs. Adobe Express
✍️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
Nick Clason (00:00):
In this third part, we are continuing on in our journey of fast and affordable options for youth pastors, ministry leaders, and just overall busy people attempting to create great graphic design for free or for super cheap. And in this video, we are going to be exploring the world of Adobe, not Adobe Photoshop Illustrator or in design, but the free version of it called Adobe Express. Make sure you hang out for this entire video because we are going to be doing an onscreen to tutorial. We'll be sharing the pricing and I will be doling out my final verdict between the three different platforms that we've been looking at in the past video in this playlist, PowerPoint versus Canva versus Adobe Express. Hey everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey everyone, if you and I have not had a chance to meet before, my name is Nick Clason.
Nick Clason (01:01):
I am a 12 and a half year youth ministry veteran now located in the D F W Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I'm on a mission to help make hybrid ministry not just in-person and not just digital, but the melding of the two easy possible and accessible for everyone in youth ministry or church ministry. And I believe that it is the wave of the future, and part of that is creating good and crisp and interesting and fun and relevant graphic design. However, if you're anything like me, you're busy, you have curriculum meeting and budget plannings, and you have meetings with your supervisor, your senior pastor. You have that parent who's kind of cranky and mad, and you have a teaching lesson that you have to prepare tonight. And yet still you need to somehow create graphics, graphics for series, graphics for events, graphics for upcoming missions trips or camps.
Nick Clason (01:52):
And you don't know anything about graphics. You don't have any graphic design skills. Well, good news, this playlist is for you because in the last two videos, we looked at PowerPoint, we looked at Canva, and now we're looking at Adobe Express. And the reason that any of this is valuable, the reason that any of this even really matters is because Generation Z is spending more time on their smartphones than any other generation combined, more than any other device combined. Meanwhile, they're also consuming social media at alarmingly high rates. For example, gen Z and Alpha are spending in 90, 95% of Gen Z Engine Alpha are spending time on YouTube alone. It is the most widely used social media platform that there is. And so digital, social and online ministry matters not as a replacement, but in addition to what we are also doing in the room.
Nick Clason (02:46):
And part of that is designed. So if you're interested in understanding what every youth ministry needs to do, which is create a robust, dynamic online presence, go ahead and check this card out right here where I share that and make sure that you check out the surefire resource link in the description to that video, which is my completely free one month posting tool for social media. But let's dive in and let's look at Adobe Express here on this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. All right, so Adobe Express is adobe.com/express, and if you go there, it will pull up this menu. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening, I'll try and explain it my best just in the podcast feed. But if you're watching on YouTube, you'll be able to see my screen here and on Adobe Express or adobe.com/express, right across the top, there are different menu options.
Nick Clason (03:44):
So the first menu option there is create. And you'll notice here you'll see social media, and then it has all sorts of different social media options. So Instagram story, Instagram reels, posts, TikTok video, Facebook story, et cetera. You got documents, posters, brochures, invitations, certificates. And then you also have marketing options like business cards, flyer, logo. Additionally, right here you have a content scheduler. We're going to look at that in just a second. I'm going to open that in a different tab so I don't lose it right here. But if you continue across that menu here, you have your quick actions, you have removed, background, resize image, convert to jpeg, P N G S V G, crop convert to gif, trim video, resize video, create P D F, export, P D F combined, P D F, which that's actually really useful stuff. I usually have to do that just in PowerPoint.
Nick Clason (04:37):
More templates, social media templates, marketing templates, documents, and then plans and offers. This is where you would explore pricing, pay for pricing, do all those types of things, and then finally learn and explore. So to tutorials, blogs, developers, partners, all those types of things. And so this is just a high quick overview of Adobe Express, but what I want to do now is I want to actually dive in and I want to create a graphic. Before we do that though, listen, I know we're just getting started, but I would love if you would like rate, subscribe, maybe even share with a friend if you have gotten value so far in this video. And if not, hang out because I'm going to drop some more value because what we're about to do is right now is we're going to create a graphic on screen. I'm going to show you just how easy this is to do.
Nick Clason (05:23):
So to hang out for that, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, and let's look at the Adobe create express tutorial. So before we dive into that, I did want to see this scheduler. Full disclosure, I've never used this to open this before, so I'm going to be exploring this with you for the very first time live here on screen. So here's a little tutorial thing, but it looks like you can connect your social, so you can connect your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, which is now called X, I don't know why no one's changing that anywhere, Pinterest and then LinkedIn. So what you don't have is YouTube, and what you don't have is TikTok. I recommend YouTube as my number one strategy for youth ministries and reaching teenagers. And so unfortunately that's not on here. I also recommend TikTok is my number two, so my top two aren't on here as far as schedulers, but if you're in the lane where you're not going to do Instagram or I'm sorry, if you're not going to do YouTube or TikTok, then this might be for you. So check this out, and what would be cool is you could actually create right here in Adobe Express and schedule right here in Adobe Express. So there's just something kind of fun, a little bonus tip for you. So here we go. Let's dive in to a live onscreen Adobe Express graphic tutorial.
Nick Clason (06:43):
All right, so let's pretend that you have a dodgeball tournament and let's just go with that as our event. And we're going to go ahead and create onscreen a live dodgeball tutorial. And so what I'm going to be looking for is I am going to be looking for something that's going to work for my screen, so I'm looking for a wide screen idea. So let's see, we got different social media, different marketing, so let's go presentation. That is going to be what we're going to be doing in our event. It's going to be on the screen. And so you have all these different sort of prebuilt tutorials. You can just see, you can explore them, and I'm just pick one here sort of willy-nilly, but I think actually, I think I'm going to start with a blank presentation. Completely blank, nothing going on here. Now, part of my problem is I need to resize it, so I know it's going to be for the screen, so that's 1920 by 10 80 and resize.
Nick Clason (07:47):
There we go. It's resized. I can go over here. I can see different themes, and so yeah, I can choose an entire kind of color scheme. And so let's see, one of these red ones is going to scream dodge ball to me. I don't love the green in that because to me dodgeball is red, but let's go. Let's see if I search red if I can find something. There we go. Yeah, okay. All right, so now I got my theme and I am going to add some media, and so let's search just in here and see what we can get. Dodge ball. There we go. Boom. Let's see if I can remove the background on that somehow.
Nick Clason (08:43):
I'm not sure what I just did there. I'm doing that. There it is right there, right? Remove background, boom, and it's thinking and it's gone. Cool. Now here's some different effects. Those are for different colors. Here's some different adjustments. I'm looking for a drop shadow. I love me a drop shadow. Let's sharpen it. Blur it. I can also animate it, which if I was doing this for a website thing, I could animate it or a social media thing, I could animate it. But for a live onscreen graphic, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much value there's going to be to animating it because it's just going to be on onscreen.
Nick Clason (09:34):
I'm trying to find, like I said, I'm trying to find, oh, there we go. Shadow. Yeah, I don't know if we're doing anything with this, but it says there's a shadow there. Dunno if that actually is. So anyway, there's that. We're going to switch our background color now because yeah, because kind of losing it there. So I'll make it big, a little off screen, and then now I'm going to add a text and my text is going to say, oh, there it is. I got to add it right here. Dodge ball. We're going to just see what, we're going to see, what fonts we even have available here. I mean, look at all these right here. I also have this section right here called More Fonts. I could check that out, but I'm looking for something big, bold, something that looks kind like, there we go. That'll work.
Nick Clason (10:41):
I'm do that. I'm going to give it a big old white outline, some drop shadow. I always love me a good drop shadow, changing the color of that tube black and all right, so dodge ball, I got that. And then I'm going to do, I'm going to add another text that just says tournament That fill is going to be white, no outline. I'm going to make it italic, but first I want a new kind of font. I like that one a little bit and pull that in on top of it and boom, now we're done. So there you go. I'm not sure how long that was, probably five-ish minutes, but you can see just how simple something like this was. And so when I'm done with it, now I'm ready. All I need to do, I got all my layers over here. I got the ball, I got the texts, I can adjust them, right their order.
Nick Clason (12:12):
So now I pulled that behind the dodge ball so that now it's behind the dodge ball if I need to do something like that, but I'm ready to go, and so I'm just going to hit download, download for P N G or for jpeg. Either one of those would work for your screen and then you click download and you're good to go. Right now it's in my downloads folder. I'll just take that and drop it in my presentation software. Boom, we got slide for our dodge ball tournament. That's how simple Adobe Express is. Let's dive in into the next section two pricing. All right, so you might be asking, okay, that looks like an amazing tool. Isn't it super expensive? And the answer is not really. So for free, for $0 and 0 cents a month, you get the free plane, which includes all the core features listed here.
Nick Clason (13:03):
It's on the screen, you can read it, but you can explore Adobe Firefly powered features like text image, text effects, features like drag and drop, import and enhanced PDFs, thousands of professionally designed static and video templates and design elements, animation presets to add motion to text, photos or design elements, limited collection of royalty, free Adobe stock photos, all these other things. You can see that you get all of that as well if you're willing to pay 9 99 a month. There's also a free trial, so feel free to check that out if that's something you're interested in. But you get a little bit of an upgrade when you go pay for it, obviously. So you get an entire collection of 195 million on-trend royalty-free Adobe stock collection, photos, videos, and music as opposed to just a limited one as they say. You can also stay in sync with Linked Photoshop and Illustrator assets if that is something that you're using.
Nick Clason (14:01):
And here's the thing, if you are already an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber or user as I am, you already have access to the paid version. You have unlimited posts scheduling to Instagram, Facebook linked in Pinterest, and more. You can do a brand kit with logos, colors, and fonts for consistency. Stay in sync, like I said, and libraries to organize, share collections. You in the free version, get access to a thousand Adobe fonts in the paid version, access to over 25,000 licensed Adobe fonts, plus a hundred gigs of storage to keep 15 plus hours of video footage. So as you do as in most cases, you have a little bit of a better option there with the paid version. If you are already an Adobe Creative Cloud user, or you work at a church that already has an Adobe Creative Cloud license, maybe you work in a big church and they have a marketing or communications department that is already paying for Adobe.
Nick Clason (14:59):
Most bigger churches or most places that have a lot of graphic work to do are using Adobe Creative Cloud in some way, shape or form, whether it's for video, whether it's for text, whether it's for logos, whatever the case might be. And so they might even be willing to share with you just a little spot on their membership so that you can get access to Adobe Express and you don't even need all the other things in the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. So that could be an option as well. If you're in a small church and you're like, I do not have the budget, they have the free version, so make sure that you go check that out. But in the next video, in the next, not video, but in the next section, I'm going to be breaking down my verdict between PowerPoint, Canva, and now Adobe expressed which one is the best and which one should you as a church ministry leader be using?
Nick Clason (15:53):
Alright, the verdict is in PowerPoint versus Canva versus Adobe Express. Which one is it? Here's how I would rank them. Personally speaking, I still love PowerPoint. And then in my journey, you heard, if you watch the first video in this playlist, my journey went from PowerPoint to Photoshop, so I love PowerPoint and I also love the Adobe Creative Cloud and everything within there. The one that I haven't used really at all, because I was a PowerPoint user before Canva was big, and then I jumped over to Photoshop when Canva started really taking a rise, and I never really spent my time on Canva, so I am the least versed in Canva. However, I'm also not that well versed in Adobe Express. I'm going to tell you the truth, the tutorial I just did, that's the second maybe third graphic I've ever actually made in Adobe Express, so I was kind of putzing around in there too.
Nick Clason (16:49):
It feels very much like Canva. Both of them feel very similar, but here's how I would rank them. I would probably rank, and it's going to differ based on everyone's context, but I think Canva is probably number one for me, not personally, but just with knowing what I know and the features and the fact that every nonprofit has the option to get Canva Pro for 100% completely free. I think that has to be number one. I think number two for me, ironically, is probably going to be PowerPoint. I still think that has some of the most powerful features. And then third is going to be Adobe Express, because I think you get the least for what you pay for. That being said, if you're in a church that has a subscription to Adobe but not Microsoft, then maybe Adobe would jump in front of Microsoft for you, or vice versa, because we talked in the very first episode that maybe you don't have access to a paid version of PowerPoint, and you can use Google Slides.
Nick Clason (17:46):
Google Slides is fourth on my list. It's probably the least powerful of all of the tools. But my point in sharing all of this is that every single one of these is free, has a free version or is very, very cheap, and they are not requiring you to jump on a massively big learning curve like Adobe, Photoshop or any of the things in the Adobe Creative Cloud to learn them because they're just so different than what you're used to. PowerPoint, Canva, and Express are all relatively easy with relatively easy interfaces, and you can figure it out, and it's not going to make you spend a lot of time or make you spend a lot of your resources to use it. But the last little hack that I have for you in this four-part playlist series is the Instagram Stories editor. So that is going to be our next video. It's linked to your onscreen. Make sure that you check that out before you do hit the subscribe. Hit the bell button if you found this video helpful because we will talk to you next time making digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible. Don't forget to stay hybrid.
19 min
September 28, 2023 Episode 064: 💸 Number 2: Canva. 4 Budget-Friendly Design Tools 🚀
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
💸BUDGET & TIME FRIENDLY DESIGN PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
DESCRIPTION
Are you in need of a fast and affordable logo design for your youth ministries? Look no further! In this ultimate guide, we will unveil 4 creative tools that will help you create the perfect logo without breaking the bank. Whether you're leading a youth group, organizing an event, or starting an outreach program, having a captivating logo and graphic design is crucial. It not only represents the identity of your youth ministry but also leaves a lasting impression on your target audience. So let's dive into the world of logo design tools!
In this episode is the world's worst kept secret, it's Canva! Canva also has a FREE for Non Profits section which is great for churches, youth ministries and non-profit organizations that are working on a budget!
The First Tool was: PowerPoint
📹 Watch Here: https://youtu.be/fOIPiPW3Wpk
🎧 Listen Here: http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Explore these 4 creative tools and let your imagination run wild.
FULL PLAYLIST:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv
TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/064
//CANVA FOR NON PROFITS
https://www.canva.com/canva-for-nonprofits/
//NICK'S 3 FAVORITES:
•QR Code Generator
•Typecraft
•Smart Mockups
//PROS & CONS OF CANVA
https://digitalscholar.in/pros-and-cons-of-canva/#:~:text=A.,available%20features%20and%20design%20elements
//CANVA PRICING PAGE
https://www.canva.com/pricing/
//LINKTREE
http://www.linktr.ee
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-01:16 Tool #2 Canva: Making Graphics for free and cheap
01:16-03:26 Good Graphics are just a click away, go check out Canva
03:26-05:27 How to navigate Canva after logging in
05:27-09:52 How to Edit Using Canva as a Beginner
09:52-11:54 What else does Canva have to offer?
11:54-15:05 Canva Pro FREE for Churches!
15:05-19:32 The 3 Most Underrated Features of Canva
19:32-22:02 Top 4 Limitations of Canva
🕰️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
Nick Clason (00:00):
Are you a busy youth ministry pastor or leader, your're calendar full of parent phone calls, curriculum planning, event planning, angriest, senior pastor, or maybe just normal senior pastor meetings. And so your schedule is busy, your budget is tight, but you still want to have dope custom off the chain, amazing graphics for your social media, or maybe even just for the screens in your room when you meet with your students. Well then look no further than this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show where we are going to be talking about everyone's favorite web-based design platform. You know it as Canva, and you've probably heard of Canva and seen Canva before. But in this episode, I'm going to go through the depths and show and share with you everything that Canva has to offer. I'm also going to do an on-screen design tutorial to show you just how easy it is.
Nick Clason (00:54):
And finally, make sure that you stick around to the very, very end of the video because I'm going to share with you my top three Canva features that are not as widely known, but can be incredibly useful for you in your student ministry and on your social media and in your web presence. So welcome to this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey there everyone. My name is Nick Clason. I am a 12 and a half year youth ministry veteran. I have been designing graphics since I was right straight out of college, straight into student ministry, and these were what some of my early on designs looked like. And so I know how bad I used to be, and these now are some of the ones that have replaced them within recent years. And I don't say that to brag. I simply say that to say I have no design skills.
Nick Clason (01:46):
I didn't go to school to be a designer. I went to school to be a youth pastor. But once I got into it, I realized I needed to have designs that looked good, that made sense, that spoke the language of my teenagers, and I didn't know what I was doing. I was just trying my best. And in a lot of cases that might be, you might be sitting there knowing you need them, knowing you want them, you've seen them done online or in other places, and you're like, I want that, but I have no idea how to create that. Canva is your answer. Now, full disclosure, I just about two weeks ago got a Canva Pro account, and I'm going to share with you how you can do that and also show with you or show you some of the features of Canva and what it has to offer.
Nick Clason (02:33):
The nice thing about Canva is the learning curve is really, really low, much lower than a product, say like Adobe Creative Cloud, which has things like Photoshop and InDesign. And so Canva can help you create and thrust into having a strong digital presence. And if you're sitting here thinking as a youth pastor, now why do I even need this? Listen, I believe that every youth ministry in America needs a strong digital presence, and I have linked that right here at the top of the video. I have a video completely about that. So if that's something that you're interested in, hop over there. Make sure that you check out what every youth ministry needs and why they need a strong digital presence. But if you're here for the graphics and if you're here for Canva, let's hop in because Canva is going to be a great step in that direction.
Nick Clason (03:23):
So let's first talk about what does Canva have to offer. All right, so if you log into canva.com, you can head over to the side panel here and it'll look something like this, and you'll see that it has this folder called projects. That's where you would go and look at all of your recent designs. It will hold and have folders for things. If you're on a team, that's where you would find other graphics done by other people that are using them. Maybe you can hand this off to an intern or a high level student or an admin who can also help dabble in it. You can get a team account and they'll have the folder section, the design section. They'll also have images that you have or have been using in the past for different designs and different projects. Now, here's what all Canva has to offer as far as it pertains to the template section.
Nick Clason (04:14):
So these are the different headers. They have business, and then under there they have docs, presentations, flyers, graphics, calendars under social media, which I'm about to do tutorial here in just a quick second. They have Instagram and then they have post stories reels, Facebook post covers ads. They have your stories. They have TikTok videos, they have Pinterest pins, LinkedIn video ads, animated social media, Twitter posts. If this is something that is interesting to you, I want to let you know that you can subscribe to this channel because we are going to be going over all kinds of different tips to tactics and ways to help you lean into the hybrid version of your student ministry for both online and in person. So match that subscribe button so that you don't miss a future video at all that continue to have education, grade subject resources. You can literally break it down by grade, kindergarten, first, second video, video, 16 by nine, Facebook, video, video messages, mobile videos, video catalog, YouTube videos, feed ad videos, and they have marketing with flyers, logos, posters, print products and cards and invites.
Nick Clason (05:20):
So let's hop in and let's do a quick design Canva tutorial. Let's check it out. All right, so if you are watching on YouTube, which by the way, if you're listening only to a podcast, want to encourage you, hop into the link in the show notes, check out our YouTube, our TikTok, our Instagram. We are on all those places. But right now for this YouTube tutorial, I got my computer in my lap. If you're watching, so you're seeing it, you're also seeing my desktop right here is what it looks like, or at least the website I'm on. And this is Canva. This is what it looks like. And so I want to show you just how easy it can be. So if you log in, hit on templates, we're going to click social media and let's do an Instagram reel if that's something that you're interested in.
Nick Clason (06:02):
They have all kinds of different templates here that you can choose from. And so I'm just going to pick one here kind of arbitrarily, and let's do this daily vlog one right here. Let's click customize this template, and then we are off to the races. And so there is a background there that we have the ability to swap out if we want to. And so if I select it here, I can boom, delete it, just like that. And so now I want something different. I want someone typing. And so typing texts. Let's see what we get here. Oh man, here's all kinds of different social media based looking things.
Nick Clason (06:44):
Here's a phone one. So let's add that. I like that one. We're going to pull that sucker in. I can make that wider if I want. I can make this phone. I can make this phone a little more off screen if I want. Put it right here. And I can edit this text right here. So I can say, go check out our most recent hybrid ministry episode about editing in PowerPoint. Boom. That was our last episode, link in the show notes if you are interested in that. But boom, here we go. I can change the duration here. It's currently at five seconds. Looks like I can add some notes. I can do a little transition. I can play it and see how it is. Now there's not a lot of, oh, here's the seconds right here. So if I want to make it longer, I can make it longer.
Nick Clason (07:49):
I can animate things. So if I wanted this text right here to do something, I could have it merge in like that. I could have it come in that I could have it look like it's being typed out. I like that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to have this one do something, some sort of animation. Let's have, yeah, let's have it rise up. We'll make it a little bit quicker. You can change the direction that it does that, right? So up, down, top, bottom, I'm just going to do from the bottom, I can exaggerate it like that, kind of like that one. And then I can add effects to it while it's just sitting there, right? It can pulsate, it can flicker, it can wiggle. So do all those. And then there's my little preview. I can click download and I'm good to go. So I think if I were to click share, I can share this with in my group. I can copy it, I can download it, I can print it. So yeah, so let's go ahead and download that sucker so that I have it.
Nick Clason (09:10):
MP four, boom, downloading, so you can see just by that. Oh, look, and they give me a little thing to tell me just how great my design was. Now, as you can see, Canva has a ton of different features to offer. I made that little tutorial in, I don't know what you're watching, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes. Not too long. And I was distracted because I was trying to talk and communicate with y'all. But here's the reality. There is so much that can be accomplished and completed just through the utilization of Canva. I want to make sure that you can know this and see this, but make sure that you hang around to the next point, because this next one might be one of my favorite points of all time. So beyond templates, right? They offer a branding section. So if you are a nonprofit, you can import your colors, import your logos, import your church youth group design.
Nick Clason (10:03):
They have all kinds of different apps. And if you click on that page, it'll show you trending apps. It'll show you new apps, it'll show you productivity apps. It'll show you design apps, share and publish, and then content planning, which is one of my favorite features. And you can do content planning for Instagram, for Facebook. If you're on Twitter, slack, Tumblr, LinkedIn, you're probably not in any of those bottom three. But if you're on one of the top two, you probably are. But here's the deal. I love planning. Speaking of planning, I have a completely free ebook to help you with your content planning in your student ministry. And here's the fact you can use Canva to help supplement some of the things that I'm going to recommend that you use because most design things like this are stock and static. And so you're going to have a page full of stock and static resources, and nobody wants to have an Instagram page full of just stock and static resources.
Nick Clason (10:53):
This is good, this is helpful, this is useful. But what most of us are looking for on social media and what your students are looking for on social media is an opportunity to contribute in some customization. And so I have 40 free student ministry ideas. You can literally copy and paste each of these ideas because while they're the same, they also offer new ones. And so in the description, a completely free ebook, one month worth of social media posting ideas, and then you can use Canva to filter in some of the gaps and some of the holes that my social media planning calendar is going to leave if it doesn't fulfill and satisfy every single day's worth of content for you in your ministry. But let's move on because I'm sure I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, wait a minute, doesn't this just cost a ton of money, like a resource as powerful as Canva that has to cost a lot of money?
Nick Clason (11:50):
Guess what? You are in for a surprise, my friend. Check it out. So if you look at the Canva pricing, of course, they have Canva for free. And so that's going to allow you, I'm going to pull my computer back up here so I can read it from that far away. But Canva for free will offer you drag and drop editor for easy customization, 250,000 plus free templates, a hundred plus design types, a million plus free photos and graphics, AI powered design tools like Magic, right? Magic design, magic edit and more. Invite others to design and work with you as well as a wide range of principle products and to design and get delivered to your door. And five gigs of cloud storage. That's completely for free. However, if you upgrade to Canva Pro, that's going to be 1499 per month for one person. Everything that I just read that was included in free as well as all these other features here, you can read them for yourself.
Nick Clason (12:48):
If you're on YouTube, it's going to be on the screen. If not, hit the link in the show notes, go check out this section on YouTube. And then finally, Canva for Teams is 29 99. It's a plan for two plus people. You get everything in the free feature plus all these other features that they have listed here. Again, onscreen link in the show notes, but bigger teams love the fact that you have SS, S O I S O certification, compliance cloud storage, up to one terabyte. You can pay as you grow. You'll be able to reconcile costs for anyone who's joined before each billing cycle, so you're not locked into your team size. But here's the good news, and you may know this already, but Canva Pro is free for churches and nonprofits, which is probably the best feature for any one of us in student ministry because you and I know that we don't have budget to pay for any of this type of stuff.
Nick Clason (13:41):
We need a full on communications team at our church. And if you're in a small church, you are the communications team, but your church can get all the Canva Pro features for free because it's a nonprofit 5 0 1 C three. That's incredible news. So you simply jump on a Canva, click on the pro feature in the menu, and you apply for nonprofit status, takes a couple days, and then boom, you are ready to rock and roll. In the meantime, you can utilize all the Canva for free features as you're waiting for them to approve your pro status. So here's what I don't know. As I was designing that we have a Canva Pro account because we are a church and we applied for it. We went through all the work. So the templates I might have used, if you're using it in free, the template I might've used may not be available to you.
Nick Clason (14:29):
However, once you're in pro, you don't have to worry about those things. If you see something cool, if you've see an animation that you like, you don't have to wonder. That's a pro version one. I don't have that. I don't have the budget. That's one of the best things about Canva is it offers it to churches completely for free. So you got to check that out. But hey, in the next section of the video, we are going to be talking about my top three favorite that I found on Canva that are a little bit undercover, a little bit under the radar, a little bit off the beaten path, but they're going to be amazing for you and your student ministry, and I'm going to tell you how you can utilize them in the next section. Okay. My three favorite resources that I found, the first one was this.
Nick Clason (15:08):
If you go over into the app section, they have a free QR code generator. I love using QR codes. I remember when they came out in college, nobody wanted to use QR codes. Then I remember when the pandemic happened, I recommended a QR code to our student ministry because I was living in Chicago, and this is what they said. They said, you have to think about how you can get information in people's hands without handing them anything or touching them. And I was like, that is everything that goes against what I've ever known to be as a youth pastor. And so I proposed, Hey, well, what about a QR code that might work? And the communications team said in that moment, and I quote, we will never use a QR code. Fast forward to two weeks later. And what was on the screen? That's right, a QR code.
Nick Clason (15:53):
I'm not saying I take credit for it, but it was my idea. In the original inception, communications team was anti QR code because for years, QR codes were wasteful and not really a good woven in part of our fabric. But honestly, the pandemic ushered in QR codes and our phones adapted. When I first had to use a QR code as a kid in college, I had to have a special app called QR Code Reader. But now my camera does all the work, so I just pull up my camera, shoot it at the QR code, and then a link pops up on my camera. I'm sure that you can relate to that as well. So QR code's, one of my favorite ways and things to use and push information to students. We use 'em in a couple of different settings. In our ministry, we like to have tables.
Nick Clason (16:37):
It incites some chaos as they're listening because some people's backs are to the stage. But on the tables in the middle, we have a little tabletop sign holders and whatever we might have, announcements wise, camp signups, all sorts of things. I can put a QR code there. A student can shoot that and they can go to whatever that announcement is. Another place that we use it is in our cafe. We have little napkin holders, and it's got a little slot for just some announcements. And so I just have a static standing graphic that says, Hey, we're social. And I drop in my QR code, which takes them to a link tree, which is a free website that you can utilize link for that in the show notes if you're interested. And then I dropped all of our social media handles in there. So it'll pull open like link tr.ee/cross creek students, and then it'll have YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all of our different things so they can follow whatever they want.
Nick Clason (17:29):
And that just lives there in our cafe on that QR code. At any time, Canva has a free one, which right now, honestly, I'm currently paying for one, and I'm going to have to keep paying for one because I use it in all kinds of different places. And to swap that out is going to mean I have to swap out all the print things and all the other areas that I've sent out information about our code. But Canva has a free one, so check that out. The second resource that I love is their type craft. So you can bend type, you can warp type, you can twist type, and I am not very good at that. On the design side, I know it looks cool. We just designed and dropped these shirts at the beginning of summer right before camp that said, hello Summer, that's got a wave and warp views on the screen if you're watching on YouTube.
Nick Clason (18:14):
And we had to send that out to Fiverr and have someone create it for it. But right here, I just discovered that Canva offers it. And so if that's something that you're interested in, which it's super hot, super in right now, talk to your students, they'll tell you. But if you want to know how to do that, you know how to make it, you can utilize that type craft tool. Again, that's in the apps section of Canva. And then finally, they have this thing called smart mockups where you can use smartphones, desktops, and laptops in your design just like I just did. But they have a whole kind of app or tutorial where you can pull in a phone and then you can drop in your own custom content. So for example, if you have a student ministry website and you want to point people to it, you can bring that phone in, drop a photo of what your student ministry website looks like into that phone, and then create a graphic around that saying, Hey, if you ever want to take a next step, head to this website at such and such website.com.
Nick Clason (19:11):
And then that phone or that mobile or that tablet will be able to display what that website actually looks like when and if someone actually heads there or shoots QR code to take them there. Now let's talk the final piece about what are canva's top limitations, because that's always going to be a thing with a tool like this. Alright, so according to digital scholar.com, they wrote a blog on this. I'll link it down below in the description if you want to go read it for yourself. But essentially what I pulled out were what I thought are the four biggest problems or limitations that you might experience as a pastor, church leader, ministry leader. The four of them are this number one canvas style, right? So stock images are great, but ultimately they're still stock images, which is why I think you should grab my ebook on how you can bring customization in your students and your leaders and yourself to your social media presence as opposed to just a bunch of graphics about it.
Nick Clason (20:09):
40 free ideas in the link in the description. Limitation number two is templates. They just have a limitation on their templates, especially for the free version. There's just really not as much and they're not as good as the pro version, obviously. And so that's not going to be an issue for you. If you're a pastor or church leader, you're able to use that for free because of Canva's ability to give that to you for free. As a nonprofit and the exporting side, you are not going to have as much control on the exporting, again, like R G B versus C M Y K. That may not matter to you as much. You may not even know what those things mean, but there is just a certain level of what you're able to do. If you do a big old poster and you export it, it may come out pixelated because it's not as crisp and clear and you just don't have as much power in creating how big you want to export it and all those types of things.
Nick Clason (21:00):
And then finally, creating unique design elements cannot really happen in Canva because they're already pre-created for you. So honestly, the single greatest, in my mind, the single greatest platform for creating unique design elements falls under the Adobe Creative Cloud umbrella. It's expensive. People often shy away from it because of that. It also has a massively steep learning curve. But what you might not know is episode number one of this series was that we offered PowerPoint as a free or budget design tool canvas number two. Our third video is going to be Adobe Express, which is their free version of it. So that is video three coming up next, which will offer you the ability to have unique design elements. So if you're interested in that, click the video here on the screen or these other videos here, and we will make sure that we talk to you next time. We're making digital discipleship easy and accessible, so stay hybrid.
23 min
September 21, 2023 Episode 063: 💸 Fast & Affordable Design for Youth Ministries: 4 Budget-Friendly Tools 🚀
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
DESCRIPTION
Are you in need of a fast and affordable logo design for your youth ministries? Look no further! In this ultimate guide, we will unveil 4 creative tools that will help you create the perfect logo without breaking the bank. Whether you're leading a youth group, organizing an event, or starting an outreach program, having a captivating logo and graphic design is crucial. It not only represents the identity of your youth ministry but also leaves a lasting impression on your target audience. So let's dive into the world of logo design tools!
Our first recommendation is PowerPoint or Google Slides. Yes, you heard it here first. You can create stunning graphics through a program like PowerPoint, and if your church doesn't pay for PowerPoint, you can pivot over and utilize Google Slides for absolutely free.
The 2nd-4th Tools are available in the next videos in the playlist where we'll uncover the world of...
•Canva
•Adobe Express
•Instagram Stories Editor
Explore these 4 creative tools and let your imagination run wild, as you craft a logo that truly
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv
TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/063
//FREE COMMERCIAL USE PHOTO BACKGROUNDS
http://www.unsplash.com
https://shop.churchmotiongraphics.com/landing/free-stills
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-00:51 Doing Graphic Design on a Budget
00:51-06:07 Tool #1: Powerpoint is a mostly free optionf or youth pastors to do Graphic Design
06:07-13:36 Objection Your Honor: Powerpoint is not a design tool!
13:36-16:05 The Shadow Side of Powerpoint: What it cannot do
16:05-17:27 Tool #2: Canva
🕰️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
Nick Clason (00:00):
Are you a youth pastor or a youth mystery leader looking to make incredible, amazing graphic design, but you don't have the skill the know-how, and you're also not looking to break the bank with your budget? Well, in this video series, we are going to be looking at four incredible resources that will not only save you time, but are also going to save you money. You can make some of those amazing crispy graphics using these completely free resources and make sure that you hang out and that you stick around all the way to the very end of the video. Because not only are we going to help you level up your design in this video, but I have a resource that will help you level up your design and then implement it into your social media. And I have a sure fighter resource in the description to help you with that as well that we're going to be dropping at the very end of the episode.
Nick Clason (00:50):
So make sure that you stick around. Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. If you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Nick. I'm a youth pastor in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and I've been in youth ministry going on 13 years. And when I started in youth ministry, I made graphics myself. I started completely from scratch with absolutely no idea of what I was doing. These are some of the graphics that I used to make, but more recently, these are some of the graphics that I have come up with. And I've never taken a design class. I have simply just hacked my way through learning one little technique at a time. And so in a lot of ways to go from this over here to this, it took a lot of just work time and time again putting the reps.
Nick Clason (01:37):
In fact, in our most recent video we talked about fonts. And fonts are one of the key things that can level up your design going from the default install fonts of the things on your computer to taking some stuff that have been created by designers and implementing that into your design. So if that's something you're interested in, make sure you check out our most recent video on fonts. But in this video, we're going to be talking about a completely free tool for most of us that is going to allow you to really level up your design. And that tool that I'm talking about is PowerPoint. Now, you might be thinking PowerPoint, what I thought you said it was free. Now, first of all, the caveat is PowerPoint's free if your church will pay for it. And here's the good news is most churches are still loving themselves, some Microsoft office from the 1990s. And so most churches have a subscription to Microsoft Office and PowerPoint. But don't worry if you don't have access to PowerPoint, Google Slides, which is completely free through Google Drive and using the Google Suite offers most of the same functionality that PowerPoint has to offer. So what I was early on in youth ministry, like I said, I was creating some of these graphics, but I started realizing that PowerPoint did have some limitations. And so we'll get to those in just a minute. But the limitations were not
Nick Clason (02:59):
Me to do some of the things that I was wanting to do. And honestly, what I would do is I'd get into PowerPoint and I'd just putz around and I'd fiddle around and I'd learn different things and I'd learn different tools that the resource had. But I would realize, man, there's some things that are just not hacking it for me. And what I did was I started going to my church and I was like, Hey, listen, great, I love PowerPoint, but can I please upgrade to something more? Next level. And honestly, the next level thing in this is Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects. Those are for video and stuff. By the way, I have a complete playlist on leveling up those skills if that's something that you want to do. If you want to go to the next level, I have a complete playlist of how to learn those crash course from beginning to end.
Nick Clason (03:48):
Check that out in the description. However, my church didn't let me upgrade. They were like, no, we're not going to do it. We need to be good stewards. We need to be good managers of the money that God has given us. And they wouldn't let me upgrade my software from PowerPoint. And honestly, PowerPoint wasn't even a software that they gave to me. PowerPoint was a software that I inherited because our church was a member of the Office Suite. That's just what, and every church I've ever been to since then has always had a Microsoft Office membership. They use Outlook, they calendar through Outlook. They use Microsoft Teams. I personally dislike Microsoft in so many ways. I am a Google person if I can do it. I like to use docs and sheets and slides. But the one thing out of all of Microsoft, I prefer Gmail to Outlook.
Nick Clason (04:51):
I prefer Slack to teams. I prefer Google Docs to Microsoft Word. I prefer Google Sheet to Microsoft Excel. But the one thing in the Microsoft Suite that I actually like and that I actually use is PowerPoint. And I think that it does offer some incredible functionality. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about that because when I was denied my ability to move on to Photoshop and the other programs that I wanted to, it forced me to stay in PowerPoint. I worked at that church for five years. It forced me to stay in PowerPoint and keep learning and making it the best that I could make it, even with the limitations that it did have. And so if you're looking to level up your design skills for free, and you already have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your computer or you don't, you can jump over to Google Slides, you can do a lot of graphic design stuff with PowerPoint, and I'm going to show you how and show you some of the unique and individual features that exist in a PowerPoint file.
Nick Clason (05:52):
So let's check it out and let's dive into ways that you can level up your design skills for mostly completely free if you have PowerPoint already installed or if not, you can jump over to Google Slides and do most of that same stuff there. And let's look at some of the features that it has to offer. So you might be thinking like isn't PowerPoint for presenting slides? And at its most basic level, yes, and I think that's a lot of the reasons why people don't think that PowerPoint can actually be a design resource or design tool. But in its most basic form and its most basic level, everything is built into layers, which similarly is what Adobe Photoshop is built into. So if you have a circle and a square, you can have the square go over the circle and it can be on top of the circle.
Nick Clason (06:38):
So if you put any sort of thing into PowerPoint, you can change the order of the way that it lays out. So one thing can be on bottom, one thing can be on top. You can send something to the back, you can bring something forward. And so in addition to that, once you get things going, you can change the design canvas. And so honestly, listen, here's a little tweak. Here's a little hack. But in most cases, when I am creating a P D F, I bring it into PowerPoint. Here's a little tweak, my completely free resource. I designed every individual page of my one month ebook that I'm giving away. By the way, link in the show notes. I designed all the individual pages in Photoshop, but then I saved those as JPEGs. I brought them into PowerPoint, then I exported it from there. As a P D F, it's one of my favorite little tools, one of my favorite little hacks.
Nick Clason (07:33):
If your church runs off of pro presenter, which is what a lot of churches are running off of, I bring everything into PowerPoint. And then when I export it, I click file save as jpeg and save all the slides in the slideshow as a jpeg. And then doing that caused everything to be in a jpeg. It drops it into a folder perfect for PowerPoint or perfect for Purpose Center, I should say. You give that folder to your tech team or you bring it over to your computer and you just command a control a select every file in there and drop it into prayer presenter. So it's a great tool to do some design stuff, but it also can help take you to the finish line of your presentation moment right before you get up to speak in youth ministry, right before you get up to present.
Nick Clason (08:19):
That's how you do it because most people aren't presenting in churches anymore, at least the ones I've been in the last 10 years aren't using PowerPoint anymore. They're using something like pro Presenter to be able to more seamlessly integrate their songs and their worship and videos and all those types of things. And I think that Pro Presenter is a great tool, but PowerPoint helps you get it to a pro presenter ready state. So you can format things, you can edit the sizes of anything in PowerPoint. You can make text boxes, you can make it big for the whole screen. You can make it smaller. You can adjust the font size. So it gets up, it gets down. And just like in our last video with the fonts, if you have different fonts installed, this is where in PowerPoint you can play around with different fonts format where they are.
Nick Clason (09:02):
You literally just click and drag. Like in Photoshop, you got to go over and find the layer. You can in PowerPoint, you literally just click your cursor on the text box that you want, you move it, you adjust it, you put it exactly where you want first. You get over, you design your slide sides and formatting. You create your background. You can create the background, then apply it to the entire slide, the entire slide show. And then every single slide after that can have that exact same background. Or you can insert an image and have a different background or a different feel or flavor or flare to every single thing. You can adjust the background, you can increase the opacity, you can make it darker. You can drop shadows in the words. There are a lot of powerful tools. And so if you just think I did, I need to upgrade to Photoshop.
Nick Clason (09:49):
Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing things in Photoshop that will help you level up your design. And I'm going to get to what some of those PowerPoint limitations are. But you can do a lot in PowerPoint and frankly, it won't break the bank because you're probably already paying for it. And again, if not, go see what Google Slides has to offer because it can offer a lot of the same things. And then the third thing is it's not going to kill you on time. It is not a massive learning curve. It's pretty straightforward. And the difference, if you've ever edited a graphic in Microsoft Word, that will hate you and you will hate it because you'll move something and it'll reformat all the other words and you just got this jumbled mess. But PowerPoint is a lot more intuitive. It's you move one layer and it does what you think it should do when you move it.
Nick Clason (10:39):
And after I moved away from that church and moved to a different church, I did in fact get the Adobe Creative Cloud, obviously as I've been using it. But since then, that was about eight years ago, seven years ago. I think at this point, PowerPoint has introduced a lot of actually new features that I really liked that it didn't have before. So one of the features, for example, that I didn't really wasn't able to do was a lot of times you'll see graphics with things cut out. So if you have this picture of me right now and I cut around myself, that's a PowerPoint thing. Or I'm sorry, that's a Photoshop thing. You cut out layers, you cut out the background, it's just me. But now you drop a image into PowerPoint and they actually have a remove background type of feature in PowerPoint. It's not that great.
Nick Clason (11:31):
There are some limitations to it. It just doesn't look as crispy sometimes as a Photoshop thing, but it does have it. And so if you have a subject on a completely white background or something that's really obvious, it's really easy to tear that out. Another feature that I love that I use all the time is when I am teaching the Bible and notes, a lot of times I will underline things and they have a draw feature. So you go in, you can create, select your pen style, pen size and then color. And then you just go and you just click draw and you just literally annotate right there on the screen. And what it does is it creates that underline or circle or whatever. It's just an individual layer. So you can make it bigger, you can make it smaller, you can copy and paste it onto the next slide if you like, the formatting and the size of it.
Nick Clason (12:15):
And so those are all new things that have come about in the last few years that I really like about PowerPoint that I actually use a lot. Also, don't forget that if you are going to go find different backgrounds, a couple of different websites that you need to know about the links to them will be in the description or the show notes. But unsplash.com is a completely free royalty free website that you can get graphics and photos that people have taken. You can use that. Also. C M G Create is church motion, graphic website with backgrounds for worship. But they will also give you their stills, like the still graphics of the motion graphics away for free. So if you're looking for a good background, check those websites out. If you're looking for fonts, don't forget the video that I talked about last week because fonts is one of the keys and graphics.
Nick Clason (13:05):
And then to just bring those two together from either cmg create in Unsplash, and then the fonts put 'em together. You can do all of that in PowerPoint. And so that is why I love the resource of PowerPoint so far. Listen though, if you've gotten value out of this video, I would love to encourage you to subscribe, share with the friend and turn on the notification bill so that every single time we drop a new video, let's move on to talk about the limitations, the downside, the shadow side of PowerPoint. So you can create things in PowerPoint, obviously, as we've been talking about. And then when you go to export it, you can export it in just about any file that you want imaginable. Now, however, when you bring a subject into Photoshop, for example, if you were to bring a picture of me right now into Photoshop, cut me out, I could export that with a transparent background, and then when I go to pull that up and open later, it will not have, the background will not exist.
Nick Clason (14:08):
So whatever background, if I were to go to Unsplash and get a mountain background and then bring me into that, I would be in front of the mountain background. You can cut me out in PowerPoint, you can export me in PowerPoint as a P N G, which is the file format that you're going to need to do to not have the background. However, whatever that canvas is in PowerPoint, it will still be there. Okay, so if there's a white background, I can't get rid of that white background because PowerPoint is still a presentation software first and foremost, and that's the way they're thinking. Again, bad Microsoft. And so that's one of the limitations. That's one of the things that caused me to really try and push for getting is that the end of the world in youth ministry graphics? No. And if you're just a youth pastor just trying to get by and you're like, bro, I just don't have time.
Nick Clason (14:58):
I don't want to learn how to do a whole new thing in Photoshop or whatever, dude, I get it. Totally. All right. But that cutout tool is one of the things that really levels up Photoshop or if you want to create circle graphics and just make a circle and then the rest of it be transparent around it, you can create a circle graphic in PowerPoint. You can make a circle. You can format the background of that to be like a picture, like a mountain picture or a gradient picture or whatever you want it to be. But there's still going to be the white around it, whatever the slide size is, that slide size, that white, that doesn't go away. And that's one of the major, major limitations in it. That's one of the key things that doesn't allow it to be a absolutely next level feature.
Nick Clason (15:42):
Also, it does have the remove background feature, but like I said, it's just, it's not as crispy as Adobe. And so like I said, if you are ready to make the investment, make the jumper, you already have link in the description of our Adobe, both Photoshop premiere and editing and Premiere for long form and short form videos. All that three part playlist in our series, make sure you go check it out. So PowerPoint is a really powerful tool. It is one that you can use anytime all the time. And if you're just looking to get by, you're like, Hey, we're going to play dodge ball and I guess slide for dodge ball. You can get in there, you can find a cool font, you can go find some dodge ball, like clip art or a dodge ball style background on Unsplash, and you can create yourself a Dodge ball graphic, drop it in pro presenter, and you are good to go.
Nick Clason (16:31):
And it is going to be quick, fast, seamless, and easy, and I want to recommend that you check it out. But if you're looking for a super duper powerful tool that is going to be Canva, and guess what? Here's the deal. Canva is the next video coming up, so I want to make sure that you guys check that out. They offer the pro version to all nonprofits for completely free. So we're going to show you how you can go ahead and get that. So make sure you click that link right here in that video. Also want to let you know that if you're just like, man, why do we need all this for youth ministry? We want to help you level up not only your design, but also your social media. So check this video out, why every student ministry needs a strong social media presence. And be sure to grab the ebook with a link in the description, and we will catch you next time. We're making digital discipleship easy and possible. Don't forget to stay hybrid, subscribe, share with a friend, and we'll talk to you next time.
18 min
September 14, 2023 Episode 062: 🤫 The Secret to Unlocking Your Graphic Design Skills: The Best Fonts ⌨️
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
In this episode titled we delve into the fascinating world of typography and its crucial role in creating visually appealing graphic designs. Fonts act as the backbone of any design, setting the overall tone and enhancing its impact. In this informative and engaging video, we showcase a compilation of the best fonts available, carefully selected to help you level up your graphic design skills. We discuss how different fonts evoke various emotions, create specific moods, and visually communicate messages to viewers. Our expert hosts will provide valuable insights into choosing the right fonts for different purposes, whether it's for your youth ministry logo, website, or social media graphics.
We share practical tips and tricks to effectively pair fonts, harmonize styles, and create visual hierarchy within your designs. Whether you're a beginner or experienced designer, this video is your guide to unlocking the potential of fonts in graphic design.
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
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🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
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👉 STAY CONNECTED
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/062
//BEST FONT WEBSITES
http://www.dafont.com
https://www.1001freefonts.com/
//ADOBE TUTORIALS
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaKVpQBDSQV6Q9hFeXCptHSu
//ARTICLES REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
*https://www.toptal.com/designers/typography/typeface-classification#:~:text=Typography%20Basics,are%20only%20used%20for%20headlines.
*https://evielutions.com/san-serif-vs-serif-fonts-and-when-to-use-them/#:~:text=Because%20of%20this%2C%20serif%20fonts,elegant%2C%20and%20a%20traditional%20feel.
*https://underconstructionpage.com/what-is-a-script-font/
*https://www.toptal.com/designers/typography/typeface-classification#:~:text=Typography%20Basics,are%20only%20used%20for%20headlines.
*https://evielutions.com/san-serif-vs-serif-fonts-and-when-to-use-them/#:~:text=Because%20of%20this%2C%20serif%20fonts,elegant%2C%20and%20a%20traditional%20feel.
*https://evielutions.com/san-serif-vs-serif-fonts-and-when-to-use-them/#:~:text=Because%20of%20this%2C%20serif%20fonts,elegant%2C%20and%20a%20traditional%20feel.
*https://www.typewolf.com/top-10-serif-fonts
*https://evielutions.com/san-serif-vs-serif-fonts-and-when-to-use-them/#:~:text=Because%20of%20this%2C%20serif%20fonts,elegant%2C%20and%20a%20traditional%20feel.
*https://evielutions.com/san-serif-vs-serif-fonts-and-when-to-use-them/#:~:text=Because%20of%20this%2C%20serif%20fonts,elegant%2C%20and%20a%20traditional%20feel.
*https://looka.com/blog/best-sans-serif-fonts/
*https://underconstructionpage.com/what-is-a-script-font/
*https://books.google.com/books?id=FiJ87ixLs0sC&pg=PA349#v=onepage&q&f=false
*https://looka.com/blog/best-cursive-fonts/
*https://archive.org/details/typographicdeskr0000rose/page/12
*https://threerooms.com/blog/what-is-a-display-font
*https://looka.com/blog/best-cursive-fonts/
TIMECODES
00:00-02:30 The Secret to Unlocking your Graphic Design Skills: Fonts
02:30-05:30 Why Fonts are so Crucial to Eye-Popping Graphic Design
05:30-08:24 What is a Serif Font? What is it used for? And What are the best ones?
08:24-12:07 What are San Serif Fonts? What are they used for? What are the best ones?
12:07-19:29 The Best Font Type to Elevate your Design
19:29-23:56 The 3 Hacks to Level up your 2023 Font-Game
TRANSCRIPT
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Nick Clason (00:00):
In this video, I want to show you the one design element that can take any of your designs to the next level, even if you have no skills whatsoever. The answer to that is fonts. What are fonts? What are popular fonts here in 2023 and how can you utilize them and where can you find them? Hey, everyone, if you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Nick. I am a youth pastor in the Dallas-Fort Worth D f W Metroplex area. And the reason that I can say this is because when I started, this was what some of my early designs looked like. I was a youth pastor. I've been a youth pastor now for 12 years, and I had no idea how to do design or graphic design, and I wouldn't even really classify myself now as a graphic designer, but with time and reps and the utilization of fonts, I have gotten I think a lot better than some of these because these are some of the ones now that I've most recently produced and created.
Nick Clason (01:03):
So I would love to invite you to come along for this journey as we explore what different fonts are, the reason why this matters, and how you can utilize them in your church and how you can access them for free in most cases. And if you're wondering, why would this even matter? I want to encourage you to check out this video that I dropped last week, which is saying why every single youth ministry in America in the world frankly, needs a strong digital and social media presence. It's a big deal. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are spending the majority of their times on their phone. So if we as youth pastors and ministers of the gospel want to enter into their space where they are, then we need to know what we're doing. And one key element to that is design. And so in this video, we are going to go ahead and be looking at some different designs.
Nick Clason (01:59):
All the links will be available for you in the description as well as at our website, hybridministry.xyz This episode is slash 0 6 2. It will also have full transcripts. And so even if you have no design skills, I want to encourage you to hang with us to the end of this video because I'm going to give you three hacks to help you level up your design skills, especially with fonts all the way at the end of the video. We're going to go ahead and dive in. So let's get this thing started. Well, hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. We're going to be talking about fonts today, and one of the reasons why is I just got a brand new resident at my job. He's with me and with our team for the next year. And one of the key things that we wanted to level him up on is design, video editing, Photoshop skills, all the things that I spend a lot of time doing.
Nick Clason (02:56):
My boss was hoping to free up some of my time, so I shot some of those tutorials. If you remember the Premier Pro YouTube shorts and Adobe Photoshop tutorials. Shot some of those just a couple of weeks ago and dropped those, and he's been learning through those and some other means. But one of the questions he asked me, he's like, where do you get your fonts? And that's one of the very first just foundational things when it comes to graphic design is you'll realize that what's standard and installed on most computers, whether you have windows or a Mac, is just not going to level it up. So great typography can really elevate any design. Meanwhile, mediocre or mid-level typography is going to tank and submarine a lot of designs and just not going to look as good as it could or as good as maybe it should.
Nick Clason (03:51):
And so one of the very, very key and most basic foundational elements that can really change just about any design is elevating your font game. And you can get so many fonts for free on the internet. We've linked a million of them down in the description or over on the show notes. They'll go and check those out if that's something that you need in our interested in or even just want to explore a little bit more. But at a basic foundational level, let's talk about what even the types of fonts are. So there are five basic fonts, and today we're going to look at three of them, talk about three of them, talk about what is common and what's popular here in 2023. And like I said, I'm going to link to some articles that will then further link you out to even go get some of those fonts.
Nick Clason (04:37):
Some are paid in premium fonts, others are free. And then of course, you can always find knockoffs. A very common font out there is Gotham, which used to be very expensive. And then Google invented a font called Montserrat. That's at least how I say it. You may pronounce it differently. And they're very similar. Montserrat was free and Gotham cost thousands of dollars. And so everyone just went the Montserrat route instead, just as a way to kind of get a Gotham knockoff. So there are, like I said, five basic classifications of fonts or typeface as some people call them. And those five types are Crif fonts, San Crif fonts, script, mono spaced and display. Let's dive in first to what a serif font is. Okay, so what is a serif font? Serif fonts are probably the most common or most classic types of fonts. You have a fair bit of them probably already installed on your computer.
Nick Clason (05:43):
How you can identify a serif font is they have little feet or little decorative stems on the bottom of each of the font type faces. It can be difficult sometimes to read on computer screens, especially if the font is small, but most brands or people are going to be using RIF fonts in order to achieve a more classic or elegant type of feel with their brand. So according to type wolf.com, these are the top 10 most popular or most common RIF fonts that you can use in your design today. The first one is og, and it looks like this. It's just very classic, very thin Sera font. The next one is Times New Roman. Shout out back to high school and writing essays in times New Roman. We all know this one. The third one they would say is Cason. The fourth one is Germond.
Nick Clason (06:41):
I remember my pastor used to use Germond all the time when I was getting started in ministry. That's how I remember it. Freight text looks very similar and classic to some of the other ones that we've talked about so far. GT Super has got a little bit more girth, a little bit more beef to it. We got the Tmm post text. We have Self Modern, which is a little bit more sleek and designy. We got the GT Spectra. And then finally we have editorial news, which in my mind mirrors and rivals a newspaper. So again, just think very classic, think very elegant. If you're watching here on YouTube, you'll notice just how some of these look and they're good, but if that's all you're working with, it can get a little bit boring. And so you may go back to this in a design type of setting.
Nick Clason (07:32):
If you're looking for something that's a little bit more, like I said, classic pulling in a different era, so to speak. And so if you're a youth pastor, you may be doing a series on something of an olden times or newspaper or something like that. RIF fonts are great with that. The other thing is you can pair fonts together. So you may do a RIF and a script or a RIF and a Sand Serif, and so we'll dive into what those other fonts look like. But like I said, you can achieve most of these for free, and you can download all kinds of different ones onto your machine. And so if you're watching on YouTube, you can see these flying in across the screen. If you are watching on YouTube, I'd love to invite you to subscribe, like share a rating. That would be amazing and maybe even consider sharing this with a friend who needs to see it.
Nick Clason (08:21):
Now let's dive into the San Sarah fonts. Okay, so San Serif gets its name right, sand Meaning No, and Crif meaning Crif, so not a Crif font. So basically if a Crif font has the little tails or a little decorative strokes, the sand serif just doesn't. And so honestly, it's pretty easy to identify the difference between the two. San Crif have become a little bit more modern here recently and used in my opinion, quite a bit more frequently. They're used often for simple and clean and really easy to read, especially on computers type of designs. And so the 23 most common fonts according to looka.com, that are used now, that are classic, and many of these, like I said, are free. So link in the description to this article. You can go grab some of them, but we have the Helvetica Now font, which is a great font.
Nick Clason (09:16):
You also have Proxima Nova. And one of the things I like about this one is they have a really heavy weight and you can also go a lot lighter. So the comparison of those two different weights of your font can really pop on a design. You have the FU of Font, public Sands, you also have Jam Grotesque, which has a really good clean, thin version. You have V V D Ss fifties. You have in the 1955 font, you have the Laro Soft, you have Open Sands, which is just a very classic, probably. You have something very similar already installed on one of your computers, a Lare, which has a lot more variation and is a lot more interesting, but it's probably not something you want to type a paper with, right? You got Lanine, you got Code Next, which this one right here looks like something I would love to use.
Nick Clason (10:08):
I love big, thick, heavy, grotesque fonts. Monaco, cia, which has got a clean kind of rounded look to it. Ninja, which has got some tighter, more jagged edges, looks really cool, be good for a video game or something. Inner Sands innovate, which looks like it's got just a lot of different variations. Exia, sbe, Gilmer, sands, Nexa, Canlis, soft and Lato. I used to use Lato all the time. I actually remember there was a game on download youth ministry called Taylor Swift or Lamentations, and they used Lato and I used it all of the time to make a version of it. And then I just started adopting it as one of my primary main design fonts back when I was getting started. So that's how I remember, and that's what I think about with Lato. So Saner fonts are great options. They're very common. It's what most churches are probably using, and you may.
Nick Clason (11:12):
And one of the nice things too about them is they offer, like I'm looking right here at the Lato font, it has regular hairline, thin light, medium, semi bowl, bold, heavy black, italic, hairline, italic, thin, italic layer, italic, medium italic, semi bold, bold, italic, heavy italic, black, italic. So you compare a black italic with just a regular as a two worded design, right? If you were doing overcoming sin, overcoming big, bold, italic, and then sin maybe smaller, maybe hairline, right? Or sin could even be shrunken and center aligned, and you could make that like a RIF font, right? So the pairing of designs is what's really key. But this next one, this next one is really the one in my personal opinion that can take a design from good to great. And so let's dive in and look at what script fonts can do for you.
Nick Clason (12:08):
Alright, so script fonts. You probably know this, it just looks cursive, right? There's two kind of basic kinds of script fonts. There's the classic or elegant looking script font, think wedding invitations. And then there's the casual sort of script font. And this is personally one of my favorite pairings, taking a good serif font, the ones without the tails, like a Lato or a Montserrat, which wasn't even mentioned in the last article, but it was a great font. And pairing that then with a great looking, cool looking script font. And that script font, whether you go casual, can elevate you to a more casual chill level or more elegant can take you to a little bit more classic looking, but saying like a serif with a script font. And then you can use that cursive font or that script font which has strokes and peaks and all kinds of things in its lettering to go over top of an font beneath it or above it, I should say.
Nick Clason (13:06):
And so according to looka.com, again, we're going to look at this article. This is the best script fonts here in 2023, and they're broken up into three different categories. So we're going to be looking at retro cursive, handwriting, cursive, elegant cursive and brush cursive. I meant to say four categories, not three. I'm a youth worker, I'm not good at math, I just help teenagers find Jesus. So let's look at some of these examples. We have the Dakota Motors that looks like you got a little bit of a vintage looking font with motorcycles and cars and stuff like that. We have the broad font, which is just, I really like what that one looks like. It looks a little bit, I dunno, basebally, you got the Minarda font, which reminds me of Save Big Money at Menards, but I really like what that one looks like.
Nick Clason (13:59):
It's looking really cool. You got the Rampage monoline font, that one looks great. It's very similar to that second one that we looked at, the broadly font. And then you got the R font that's got a little bit more retro eighties vibes to it. And then the last one here in the retro cursive font category is the Hope Sands font. And that's just got, it looks a little bit more like standard and then it's got just some extra kind of tails to it. Okay? In the handwritten cursive fonts, one of my favorite, frankly favorite categories is I think it just looks casual. I think it just looks cool and inviting. You got some handwritten cursive fonts. So we got the Joy X Script font. You got the Balta Home font. That one looks like very pen. There's lightness in some of the strokes. It looks like it was written with a pen.
Nick Clason (14:51):
Crystal Spears, you got that font aesthetic notes. I really like what that one looks like too. The TA font's a little thicker, got a little bit more beef to some of its stroke there. The Billy site, that one looks like it was pinned by a grandmother writing something to one of her grandkids. This one looks a little bit more swoopy to me. The youth line font, which looks, I would use that one. I think that one looks cool. And then the Palmer Lake font looks really good, really inviting to me. And then lastly here, we got the with U font. So like I said, all of these links in the description. Also, what you'll find in the description is a link to my completely free ebook, which is going to give you 40 done for you idea social media post ideas. And here's the thing, a lot of social media companies out there, even like Download Youth Mysteries, one of my all time favorite companies, they give you a monthly social media pack.
Nick Clason (15:48):
But the problem is it's all just a bunch of graphics. And if that's what you're going for on social media, great. But if you want a more custom face on camera or just personality with you, your youth ministry, your youth pastor, youth pastors, church staff, I have 40 ideas to help you level up your social media into a completely custom approach to it. So check that out. And what you can do is then you can pair some of these font designs with some of the designs that you'll then put on camera if you want to go down that editing route. Or you can also download my other free ebook, which is how to take a TikTok account from scratch and post things directly on your phone using just the editor on your phone. Very simple, very easy way. But either way, both of these ways help you become more relevant to your students in the other six days of the week when they're not at your church or at your youth ministry.
Nick Clason (16:40):
Let's continue on with fonts. We have the elegant cursive font, and so we have this Righton font. I really like what that one looks like. Jane Tni, that one looks very elegant. Gustav, I would not call these elegant personally. This one may be a little bit diary. Angelique looks a little bit more wedding invitation. The other ones look a little bit more just kind of modern estopa. That one's very monochromatic, very simple, very sleek. Stonington, I like that one. It's got the big long tails. And then we also have here to round it out, we have buttermilk, so beautiful script font there. Lastly, we're going to look at some brush cursive fonts. We have maho, I almost said mahogany, but that's Maho America font, the Chaum font, the Myster tattoo. I really like that one's got just some weird kind of tails on it in the middle weather, top type face, guava yogurt.
Nick Clason (17:43):
And then we have little B. So my point is the script font. You can tell there's a lot more options there. That's because there's so much variation and so much variety to script fonts. I personally think that they just have the ability to really, really change the feel and design of something graphically. So you can be terrible at graphic design. You can have no idea what you're doing. You can download just a basic stock image off of Google Images, unsplash.com, c m G, create any one of those places that you can just get some sort of background type thing, but then you can elevate your design by having some good fonts. All right, A couple of quick, honorable mentions I want to give to you before we dive into those three hacks that can help take you from a beginner to at least someone that looks like they know what they're doing with design is we have the mono spaced font, which is basically a fixed pitch, fixed width, non-proportional font.
Nick Clason (18:42):
It's a font whose letters and characters occupy the same amount of horizontal space. In a lot of cases. You can take a Crif or San Crif font and you can manipulate that, especially in a more powerful tool, say like Photoshop. And then also we have the display font, which is just a really big, broad category that can generally be used and fonts at different large sizes for things like headings. And they're often able to just be seen really well on the things like websites and other things like that. Again, you can make just about any font feel like a display font by changing the size and making it just even bigger. So let's dive in and let's talk about the three hacks to level up your font game in 2023. Alright, leveling up your font game. You may be getting just started completely from scratch, no idea what you're doing.
Nick Clason (19:36):
You may have even made some graphics. You're like, this looks trash. It looks like some of my early on graphics, and that's okay. Everyone has to start somewhere. One of the really, really key things that happens here is repetition. Just keep doing it. What happens in youth ministry a lot of times is you start a job because you love teenagers and you want to invest in them, but then you realize, man, there's an element of other things that I never learned. I didn't go to school for graphic design. I didn't go to school for video editing, but here I am doing those things. I find all of those things important. And so the more you can just level up your font game, all you got to simply do is download these fonts, install them on your computer, and you can start using them in whatever graphics software you have, whether it's PowerPoint, whether it's Photoshop.
Nick Clason (20:20):
You can also just go to canva.com and you can use their pre-installed fonts. The problem is with all these different custom ones here, you're not going to be able to use those on Canva because Canva is the one that's controlling what's being used. But if you're using anything on your computer pages, PowerPoint, Photoshop, any of those products, or even just word, you can include some of these in your thing, and you can pair good font pairings, and that will help you create and establish a feel of vibe and even some authority in your student ministry and in your graphics. But as promised, what are those three hacks to level up your font game? The first one is now that keep an eye for inspiration as you go, as you're walking around, as you're at your kid's school, which is probably not going to be a spot where you're going to find inspiration as you're at football games, as you're at professional football games, as you're at theaters, as you're at plays, as you're out at the supermarket, you'll start to notice fonts and you'll start to notice how they're utilizing them.
Nick Clason (21:27):
I want you to just snap a picture on your cell phone, but look for inspiration as you go, and then pull that back up, and that will help you create and craft a design for something else in the future. Another idea is if you have a series idea, let's say we have a series coming up in Thanksgiving time, and I had my resident try and create a graphic for it. It's called Gratitude Attitude, who doesn't have a Thanksgiving series called Gratitude Attitude? Drop in the comments below what your Thanksgiving series is going to be called. But I was like, Hey, just Google it. Google Gratitude Attitude Church series, and see what you get. And that can be a great source of inspiration to just find and see what some other churches are doing. And then you can steal, borrow, mimic some of the feel, the design elements of it.
Nick Clason (22:15):
And then lastly, I just want to let you know you can, any given time, you don't need to go to looka.com. You don't even need this YouTube video for some of these answers. You can say like, Hey, I want a summer feeling font, Google free summer fonts, or I want a Halloween scary type font, Google free Halloween font. You want a Thanksgiving font free Thanksgiving font. I want a casual font free casual font. You can find just about any type of feel of a font just by simply Googling it or using a tool like deon.com. The only thing you got to be on the outlook for is if you're going to use one of these fonts in a paid moment or a paid version, because some of those are for personal use only, and if you're using them in your church or youth ministry, you're going to be fine because you're not selling any of those things.
Nick Clason (23:04):
If you do choose to turn around and sell it to something like Download Youth Ministry or something like that, you're just going to want to find a font that you can use free for commercial use or purchase one. So, hey, listen, I hope that found this video helpful. Listen, I am on the move to try and get people to utilize digital and social to help influence, disciple and reach the next generation. So we have a complete six part social media framework, setting it up from scratch, step one, step two, step three, step four, and one of the key ones is YouTube. That's that first video. So I hope that you click that, check that out, make sure you like, make sure you rate, make sure you subscribe. And
Nick Clason (23:45):
With a friend, we are here to make digital discipleship easy and possible. Thanks for hanging out, and don't forget to stay hybrid.
24 min
September 07, 2023 Episode 061: 📲 Instagram vs. TikTok vs. YouTube. The Most Effective Social Platform for your Church's Youth Ministry 📲
🔥SURE FIRE RESOURCE TO LEVEL UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME 🔥
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
DESCRIPTION
In this episode, join us as we delve into the exciting world of social media platforms and discover which one holds the key to maximizing your church's youth ministry outreach. We'll be breaking down the pros and cons of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, helping you navigate the digital landscape with confidence. Whether you're a youth pastor, a church leader, or simply interested in harnessing the power of social media for positive impact, this episode is tailor-made for you. Get ready to uncover the secrets of engagement, connection, and inspiration as we unveil the most effective platform to elevate your church's youth ministry to new heights.
🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/061
//PEW RESEARCH ARTICLE
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/
//6 PART SOCIAL MEDIA FRAMEWORK
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIbzg_DNJrTrCtBHQnxcOVo
//WHY EVER YOUTH MINISTRY NEEDS A STRONG SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
https://youtu.be/SDxepdu4iiM
//MOTION ARRAY
https://motionarray.com/
🕺 TikTok: 🎵
Get ready to dance into the world of TikTok! 🕺 We'll discuss the power of short-form videos in grabbing attention, sparking trends, and spreading your message like wildfire. Learn how to harness the creative energy of TikTok to connect with the youth in ways you never thought possible.
📸 Instagram: 📱
Discover the world of visual storytelling as we explore how Instagram can capture the hearts and minds of the youth. From captivating visuals to real-time interaction, we'll uncover the strategies that can turn your Instagram feed into an inspiration hub for your young audience.
📹 YouTube: 🎥
The long-form champion! 📹 We'll explore how YouTube provides a platform for in-depth content, tutorials, discussions, and live engagement. Join us as we unravel the potential of YouTube to create a library of resources that empowers and educates your young audience.
LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
So, whether you're an #InstaLover, a #TikTokEnthusiast, or a #YouTubeAficionado, this video is your guide to selecting the social platform that aligns perfectly with your church's youth ministry goals. 🌐 Let's make an impact together!
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated on all things Hybrid Ministry. Let's transform the digital space for good! 💙🙌
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
TIMECODES
00:00-02:34 Why Every Youth Ministry Should be Using Social Media
02:34-05:47 Every Youth Ministry Context is a little different
05:47-10:48 The Rise of TikTok
10:48-13:25 Instagram: The Curse of Legacy Followers
13:25-17:25 YouTube: How to Level up your YouTube Game in Youth Ministry
17:25-20:05 The Verdict is in: Which Platform should Youth Ministries be Using
TRANSCRIPT
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Nick Clason (00:00):
Hey, in this video we want to answer what is the best social media platform for your youth ministry in 2023? So it's gonna be TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Yeah. Go ahead and hang out in this video because recently Pew Research dropped some stuff that said that 42% of Americans use TikTok. Meanwhile, 71% of Americans use Instagram, and furthermore, 81% of Americans use YouTube. And so in this video, we are going to inspect all three of them, give you the pros and the cons, and then ultimately answer which platform is best for you to dial into in your student ministry in 2023 and beyond. But make sure that you stick around to the very end of this video, because I have a surefire resource that is going to help you win in your social media, in youth ministry. We have a free download to at the very end of the video, so make sure you hang out with that.
Nick Clason (00:51):
Now, you might be asking like, is that research for Americans or is that research for teenagers? And that's a great question because the teenage data is actually a little bit different. And so Pew Research dropped an article about a year ago, in fact, almost a year ago from the date of this recording, uh, where it compared 2014 to 2015 stats all the way to now, uh, the most recent trends and most recent stats. And so interestingly, at the time, uh, YouTube wasn't originally captured as a social media. YouTube as a platform has been around, but it wasn't like converted in people's ideology to social until recently. Meanwhile, Facebook usage in teenagers went down, went from 71% down to 32%. TikTok was on the rise. It's up to 67%, and Instagram's on the rise from 52% up to 60, uh, from 52 up to 62%. Snapchat also was up on the rise along with Instagram.
Nick Clason (01:47):
And so 67% of teens say that they use TikTok ever. Meanwhile, 16% of teens say that they use it, get ready for this. Almost constantly YouTube though, however, does Chop top the charts as, uh, the usage for teenagers at get this, 95% of teenagers say that they are using YouTube. And then now, uh, Instagram and Snapchat, both are next and both used, both are used by about six in 10 teenagers. So that data is quite a bit different, quite frankly, than the original data. And so I'll drop the link to this article so that you can see it, you can read it for yourself. The link is in the show notes, but that's what we're gonna do is we're going to dive into TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Yeah, let's go. Well, everyone, my name is Nick Clason. I'm a youth pastor in the DFW Dallas-Fort Worth area, and I've actually been in youth ministry for believe it or not, 12 and a half years. And I've been managing social media accounts at each of those youth ministry stops in all sorts of various levels of intentionality and all sorts of various levels of, uh, like just know-how. And so what's interesting is when I first started, I viewed
Nick Clason (02:58):
Social media as a way to just get out more information. Like I had an email list and also I had an Instagram following. So Instagram wasn't even around when I started. I launched, uh, my very first Instagram student ministry Instagram page, uh, at the first church that I worked at. But every single church after that, I actually inherited an Instagram account and actually a fairly large Instagram account. However, in most cases, I helped launch a YouTube channel and I also helped create and start a TikTok from scratch. And so that's what I've done within the last year of starting here at the church I'm at now. We launched from scratch a TikTok account and a YouTube account. Instagram of course has been around and you're inheriting all of those followers. And so at just about every single church, I've had some measure of growing, uh, uh, social media ministry, a hybrid ministry and social media and and social networks, right, in all of my context.
Nick Clason (03:52):
And so I'm just curious for you, I would love to know both where you're watching from and what social media network seems to be working best for you. You know what's interesting, drop that in the comments below. But what's interesting is I just moved from Chicago down here to Dallas-Fort Worth and in Chicago, uh, they wouldn't text each other via text message or like standard ss m s messaging. They would really only text people each other, their friends through Snapchat, which was a really interesting phenomenon. And so down here it's not as much the same. Snapchat usage is still happening, but it's not the primary vehicle with which people communicate. And so it just goes to show that wherever you are regionally, it does truly matter and it's a little bit different and the culture and the climate are just a little bit different. So as you're letting us know in the comments below which social media platform seems to be working most in your youth ministry and in your context, you might be asking what does working even really mean?
Nick Clason (04:48):
I mean, are we talking views? Are we talking impressions? Are we talking like engagement? Are we talking reach? Like what is it? And I actually have a lot of answers to that and how to get started in our six part social media framework for churches. I'll link it right here if that's something that you're interested. But go ahead and take a look at that. If you are trying to get this up, up, up off the ground, get started in your social media, I would love to have you do that. If you are not watching on YouTube, that link will be in the show notes of your podcast catcher. But I just wanna know that as we break down in that six part context, we break down which of these social media, uh, channels, you can watch through each of the different platforms, and then you can be, uh, a decision maker as far as which is the best to implement in your current climate and in your current context.
Nick Clason (05:35):
But TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube, let's dive in and let's look at each of the platforms, the pros, the cons, where they came from and why they are where they are today. So let's go. Some say it started as early as 2019. Others say it started closer to the beginning of 2020. And you know me, like I tried to play my part as much as I could, but it seemed like no matter what, everybody around me was getting it and I kept distancing myself from it. I tried to stay away from it, but finally it was around Christmas time of 2020, I finally just broke down and I decided I was going to get it. Now, you know what I'm talking about, right? Put it in the comments. 3, 2, 1. I'm talking about TikTok. Oh, you thought I was talking about Covid? No, I'm talking about TikTok, right?
Nick Clason (06:23):
TikTok burst on the scene during the pandemic, actually. And what's fascinating is like there's all sorts of toss out there now, but like I would never download that. And it's like me now just like doom scrolling, like just consuming it at like mass crazy levels. Here's the thing that you need to know about TikTok is they invented a brand new way to do social media. And the way that they burst on the scene and the popularity with which they burst on the scene is now causing all other platforms to change their method and their approach to social media. And so TikTok, uh, brought to us what we now use, and you may not call it this or may not think of it this way, but essentially it's the discovery algorithm. It's the algorithm with which you consume the majority of your content from people that you don't even know you're discovering them, right?
Nick Clason (07:11):
A way that I've used this in my own life is last, uh, last spring, my family and I, we went to Disney. We visited the mouse. And if you've ever been to Disney, one of the best places to go to Disney is Epcot. All right? And so we went to Epcot on the very first day of our trip. My brother, uh, my sister and my brother-in-law came and they joined us. They live in Florida a few hours away. So they drove over. I mean, it was a blast. We hung out on Epcot. But in order to know the best, like if you've never been to Epcot, they have this thing called the World Showcase. And you walk around this giant lake and there are 11 different pavilions. You got like Mexico and Japan and China and Norway, and you got France, and you got Germany, and you got, uh, United Kingdom.
Nick Clason (07:51):
You got United States, you got Canada. I might've named all 11. I don't know, I might, I might've missed one. Let me know in the comments if you're a Disney person and if I missed one. But what we did was I built a map and I talked, I looked at the best food, the best drink, the best places to stop, the best carts to get stuff from at each of these different pavilions. And the way that I did that, the way that I did the majority of my research was through TikTok. It's amazing. And now TikTok is converting to not just scrolling and hoping to find a good next video, but now TikTok is actually trying to convert into more of a discovery, uh, or like search-based, uh, type of platform where you can go and you can get answers to certain questions. And you might be thinking as a youth pastor, that's an amazing concept.
Nick Clason (08:35):
And you're right, it is. You can answer very specific questions on TikTok. But here's the thing. In my Epcot experience, I got a lot of great answers. I went to the France Pavilion, I got the croquet glosser, I'm probably saying that wrong 'cause I'm not French, but I was told, Hey, this brioche bun with ice in the middle, and they flip it over in like a waffle, iron type thing. I found out about that completely and exclusively on TikTok. I would've never found that little, like, kind of like off the beaten path little restaurant to find that thing in my normal meandering. And walking around Epcot, TikTok came in clutch for me on that. However, I have no idea who posted it. I'm not following them. I don't have a relationship with them, and it's not a continued ongoing one. And so the relationships on TikTok, especially with those who follow you, are far less, uh, substantial than some of the other ones because of this kind of discovery based algorithm.
Nick Clason (09:33):
And I think TikTok might be trying to change that a little bit, but you just need to know that as a youth ministry, if you put your content out there and you do get a lot of subscribers, or you do get a lot of views, or you do get a lot of followers, like that doesn't necessarily equal more people that you're having like good influence with because I think it's something like 85% of the content that any one of us consume on TikTok are from people that we don't know. And so for you, a really good thing to do would be to create a meaningful call to action that pushes them to some sort of thing, to a link in the bio if you do have enough followers on there to your YouTube channel, to a digital connect card online, so that you can get to know the people that are watching your videos and that are getting answers from the, uh, big questions that you are trying to answer on TikTok.
Nick Clason (10:21):
So with that being said, hey, listen, if you are getting value out of this video, if this has been helpful so far, I would love it if you would hit that like button, if you would give us a rating if you're listening to a, a podcast or if you would subscribe on YouTube and maybe even consider this sharing it with a friend. But after this, we're gonna move on to not just TikTok, but now we wanna look at Instagram. So coming up next, let's take a look at Instagram, the pros, the cons, and what you need to know about that platform. All right, so Instagram, one of the things I call it, I don't know if this is really what it's called, but if you come into youth ministry, you're probably going to, at this point in, in the lifecycle of youth ministry and the lifecycle of Instagram, you're probably going to inherit what I call legacy users.
Nick Clason (11:04):
So that's people who have in the past been associated affiliated or connected with your youth ministry in some sort of way. But in the last couple of places that I've, I've shown up and I've, uh, jumped onto the Instagram, what I've realized is that there are college students, majority of college students as our follower base. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing for general social media marketing, it may not also be a great thing for youth ministry, social media marketing, because those are not the people that you're trying to reach anymore. And so, uh, on Instagram, you probably have some sort of an older audience as a result of just like the history of it and the way in which we've done things. So even in a church I went to, we went and we just did a follower and following like audit, and we just, anyone we didn't know we took out because if, if we don't know 'em, and we've been there for a few years, like obviously it's time to, to sort of cut ties with this relationship here.
Nick Clason (11:59):
And we're not trying to be jerks, we're not trying to cut people off, but, uh, that was not our target that we were like going towards, you know? And so if you go to a business account and Instagram and you look at the analytics and it's all skews older, like that's as a youth pastor, you're like, that's not, that's not what you're trying to do. That's not who you're trying to reach. You can still minister to those people and, and you should, but you just kind of gotta know that there's going to be legacy users on Instagram. You just gotta figure out what you wanna do and what your personal philosophy to managing that is. The other piece of Instagram that you need to know is that it started out as a photo sharing app, and then it stole stories from Snapchat, and then it stole reels from TikTok.
Nick Clason (12:37):
And so honestly, right now on Instagram, there are three very distinct different experiences for Instagram users. There's the feed and there's stories and there's reels. And so for me, because, uh, short form vertical video content is king right now, I am able to just do all of my focus on reels and use reels to share stuff to the feed and use reels to share stuff out to stories. And so by using reels, I'm able to kill literally three birds with one stone. But if you don't know that and you don't have some sort of like thought through strategy, Instagram can eat your lunch because it is busy and there's a lot going on there on Instagram. Now, let's dive into the third and final versus TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Let's check it out. YouTube, according to a 2022 study, we looked at it earlier, 95% of teenagers are using YouTube.
Nick Clason (13:34):
95%, nine and a half out of 10 people in your demographic that you're trying to reach are using YouTube. Now, not all YouTube users are built the same, right? Some are on there as adults, right, to like repair their faucet. Others like my kids, they're on there to watch Roblox and they're on there to watch Rainbow Friends and people get killed by these scary monster things. Teenagers are on there for a probably, uh, a hybrid of those two reasons, along with answers to specific questions along with entertainment, along with watching Mr. Beast videos, like whatever the case might be. Teenagers are on there for a variety of reasons. 'cause YouTube has a variety of content. I mean, for crying out loud, this video right now is on YouTube, but 95% of teenagers use it. In addition, it is the second largest search engine in the world powered by the first largest search engine in the world.
Nick Clason (14:26):
So it is a great place to be discovered and to be found. And when people are going to YouTube, they're often asking specific questions, right? Like the other day, I got onto YouTube and I was asking how to fix smoke coming out of my lawnmower. Very specific question. So I want you to reverse engineer, and I want you to kinda retrofit that idea into your ministry as a youth pastor. What are some of the specific questions that teenagers are asking you in day to day? Why does a loving God send good people to hell? If we're always forgiven for our sins, then why do we need to obey him? Now, what's the purpose of obedience? Does God need you or require you to vote Republican? Right? Whatever the the questions are that you are fielding as a youth pastor, think about it. You have an opportunity on YouTube to go on there and answer very specific questions that your kids are asking.
Nick Clason (15:21):
And furthermore, it is the second largest search engine in the world. So take those specific questions and help give them some specific answers. During C O V I D I moved to a church, started a church the very first day of C O V I, and then I got immediately locked down. And so I was working out on my master bedroom with boxes all around me trying to figure out how to be a youth pastor in this brand new context. And I, quite frankly, I did not have enough to do. During that time. I kept asking my boss, what more do you want from me? What more do you want from me? And he was like, just keep doing what you're doing. And I wasn't doing much. But so what I did with my time, even as I was at home, is I taught myself Adobe after effects.
Nick Clason (16:03):
I taught myself how to do it step by step, key frame by key frame agonizingly, and I was building things completely from scratch. And then once we broke free from the pandemic, I found out that all the creative people at my church were using a thing called motion array. I'll link that down below in the show notes if that's something that you wanna check out. It's an amazing tool for After Effects Premier Pro, uh, stock footage, stock audio. But guess what? I could take a motion or a template and I could very easily use After Effects because I now had an ability and a skill set that I didn't have before. I completely used YouTube to teach myself a brand new skill. Speaking of which, if you are interested in our completely free Adobe Premier Pro, uh, effects and plugins, they're easy bounce ins and bounce outs and rotates in and rotates out and drop in from the top and drop in from the bottom, and a smooth effect and a bounce effect, then I wanna encourage you to go to the link down below, order the link in the show notes and grab that.
Nick Clason (17:01):
If you're a video editor, if you use Adobe Premier Pro, this is my number one go-to tool. And I would love to encourage you, if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing some of the effects right now, I would like to encourage you to download that and use it in your ministry if this is something that you are doing as a video editor. So now let's dive in to the conclusion, TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. Finally, the verdict. Here we go. Let's look at it. So the verdict, TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube. What is it? If you asked me if I were to rank them in importance, here's how I would rank them as a youth pastor in 2023. In order of importance, in order of usage, in order of opportunity, I would rank them YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, in that order. Now, here's the good news.
Nick Clason (17:46):
I have a way for you to knock all three of them completely out of the park. And here's why. Because of TikTok and them introducing the discovery algorithm, Instagram has adopted reels and YouTube has adopted shorts. And so by adopting one centralized strategy on your social media, i e short form vertical video-based content, I have a completely free ebook that I am giving away in the link to the show notes. And it's called this, it's called The One Month Done For You Posting Tool. And it will give you 40 different video ideas that you can film on your smartphone or on a camera and post with very little editing, uh, need or ability. You can do all of it from your smartphone. Uh, the, the good news is when you download that ebook, you're also gonna get a link to our ha Have I Ruined My TikTok account?
Nick Clason (18:35):
A Complete Guide to Posting a TikTok from Start to Finish all via your phone. And so both of those are going to be paired well together so that you, if you have no video editing ability, if I'm talking about Adobe Premier Pro plugins and you're like, what in the world are you talking about? This is your way as a youth pastor with minimal, uh, experience, minimal, uh, know-how in any of these areas to completely revolutionize your social media experience. Because if you go all in on short form vertical video-based content, you can do fun stuff. You can do challenges and games with your students. You can get students on your social media and you can overhear, you can get, you can answer specific questions to big and specific problems. You can do recaps to your messages so that your messages don't just happen on a Wednesday night and then die there.
Nick Clason (19:21):
You can use a fully faceted, fully integrated social media posting thing. And I have all of that completely for you for free. All I need you to do is click that link and download that, um, and just start using it today. And I would love to know if you do and if you find it helpful, because I think that it's an amazing resource and an amazing tool. So go grab that download, and if you actually wanna put that completely to the, to the fullest extent, if you wanna use that to the best of its abilities, then you need to go check out episode number 60, linked right here answering the question why every single youth ministry needs a strong digital presence. Because here's the deal, we are here to make digital discipleship easy and we wanna encourage you to stay hybrid.
21 min
August 31, 2023 Episode 060: 📲 Why Every Youth Ministry Needs a Strong Social Media Presence 📲
📲 Why Every Youth Ministry Needs a Strong Social Media Presence 📲
In this episode we'll give you a COMPLETELY FREE Done for you, reproducable month long social media posting tool and stratgey framework. Just copy and paste this month after month for a strong social media presence in your church's youth ministry!
Hit the link below!
👇👇👇👇👇
🆓FREEBIES
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book
😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit
AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv
TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
RISE OF THE NONES
https://amzn.to/44YyZlT
In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, it's crucial for every church to embrace the power of social media. Whether you're a small local congregation or a thriving mega-church, marketing the church effectively can help you connect with your community like never before. We'll be discussing tried-and-true marketing church strategies that include utilizing social media platforms to create a strong online presence. From crafting compelling content that resonates with your audience to developing a comprehensive church social media strategy, we've got you covered.
Looking for innovative church social media ideas? Look no further! Our channel is your go-to resource for church social media management tips and tricks. We'll guide you through crafting a church social media policy that ensures your online presence aligns with your church's values and mission. With our insightful videos, you'll learn how to become a proficient church social media manager or even explore the option of bringing in a dedicated professional. Together, let's unlock the potential of social media for churches and take your ministry to new heights. 🌟
Don't miss out on our game-changing advice for creating the best church social media strategy. We'll provide you with customizable church social media templates and actionable steps to execute a flawless plan. If you're wondering how to effectively use social media to extend church invites and foster engagement, we have the answers you need. Join us as we delve into real-life examples, including the social media strategy of renowned churches like Elevation Church. Prepare to elevate your church's online presence and witness the incredible impact it has on your youth ministry and congregation as a whole. Subscribe now and embark on your journey to a Strong Digital Presence for your church's youth ministry! 🎉🏛️
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/060
//NPR ARTICLE
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/17/1175452002/church-closings-religious-affiliation#:~:text=Estimate%3A%20In%202019%2C%20the%20year,opened%20and%204%2C500%20churches%20closed.
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT EPISODE
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/033
//FINDINGS FROM BARNA E-BOOK
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/006
//SIX FINDINGS FOR THE HYBRID CHURCH EXPERIENCE
https://shop.barna.com/products/6-questions-about-the-future-of-the-hybrid-church-experience
//PEW RESEARCH ARTICLE:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/attendance-at-religious-services/
📱NICK'S SOCIAL MEDIA RESOURCES
SPIRITAL PRACTICES TIKTOKS
•https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/spiritual-practice-videos/social-media/instagram-8804.html
INSTAGRAM TOOLS
•https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/instagram-slider-engagement-tool-vol-1/social-media/instagram-8118.html
•https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/instagram-stories-slider-tool---hot-takes-edition/social-media/instagram-8034.html
ALL RESOURCES
•https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/featured-authors/nick-clason/?cgid=shop-nick-clason&q=nick+clason&start=18&sz=18
👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-02:19 Intro
02:19-10:18 How can our church be more relevant for Gen Z & Gen Alpha?
10:18-21:52 Why youth ministries need to post their messages to YouTube
21:51-25:05 40 Done for You Social Media Posting Ideas
25:05-26:50 Where to get all these resources?
✍️TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, hey, everybody. In this episode, we are going to answer this question why I believe every single youth ministry needs a strong social media presence. We're going to look at some trends, some statistics, and share with you why now is the time to double down, to engage and to make social media and a digital presence important in your church's student ministry. Well, everyone, if you and I have not had a chance to meet, my name is Nick Clason. I am an actual youth pastor in the D F W Dallas-Fort Worth area, host of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast. So welcome to that. Excited to have you with us. We are going to dive into some statistics and some, some trends and some quotes, and I got all kinds of fun stuff. If you are not already subscribed to our YouTube channel, hit that subscribe button, hit that notification button, hit that like button.
Nick Clason (00:57):
All those things help us get seen by other people who also need to hear this message about the importance of digital and student ministry in your church in 2023 and honestly, far beyond. So excited to have you with us. Hey, I also wanna let you know we got a couple of freebies. So link down below in the description in the show notes. If you're listening on a podcast, hit those up. We got your free ebook on how to create a complete TikTok from scratch. And in this episode, we are also going to, with that exact same link, we are going to drop another free done for you social media structure plan, um, 40 free videos, your social media plan. I'm gonna give it to you for you and for your youth ministry. Make it happen, download that ebook. Also, if you are a video editor and you use Adobe Premier Pro, we have some free presets for you so that you can use those Adobe Premier Pro presets in your editing.
Nick Clason (01:52):
Completely free, super easy to use, just want to encourage you to check those things out, uh, a like rating, subscribe, all those things. We are on TikTok, we are on Instagram. We are all the places. Hit the description, YouTube, hit the link in the show notes on a podcast. But without any further ado, let's hop in and let's dive in to the topic of why every youth ministry needs to have a strong social media presence. Let's go. So I was recently reading through, uh, the comment section of YouTube channel, and I saw this question and I thought it was fascinating, and I thought that it was worth exploring the question read like this, what elements can we bring into our service and our church, whether innovative or just a mood that increases our relevancy to Gen Z and Alpha? It may cost us discomfort, but we are willing to stretch.
Nick Clason (02:44):
First of all, I love the notion here that we are willing to stretch understanding that the times that we are in with Generation Z and generation alpha, gen Z, um, most people are saying, uh, the old, the, the youngest of them are born 2010, uh, on up through young adulthood. Now they're in their twenties, mid twenties or so just now graduating college, just now getting started to, um, have a career. And in addition to all of that, joining your church force for the first time. And so if you're in youth ministry, gen Z is not in your youth ministry. Uh, maybe like your high school we would say is, is Generation Z, gen alpha, um, eighth grade, seventh grade or so, right in that range. Um, down on through, uh, having been born between, uh, 2010 and 2025. So some of them aren't even born all the way yet.
Nick Clason (03:35):
They're in the kids' ministry, but they're waving on up. So Z and alpha are so, so completely different. I wanna share just some, some kind of state of Gen z state of gen alpha statistics with you. But those things are gonna help us frame this conversation about why social media is so important for the next generation. A lot of churches have a social presence and it operates as their outreach arm, their evangelism, uh, branch of their ministry, so to speak. And I, I think that is a great tactic and a great tool, and if you're not doing that, you definitely should. However, that being said, I think there are also opportunities to, um, promote discipleship growth, theological and spiritual connection and commitment, not only with each other, but also just with connection to God's word. And so I want to dive into some of those things, but before we do that, let's look at who Gen Z and who Gen Alpha are, what we know about them, what some of our learnings are, and what we can kind of like take from that and how that's gonna help us frame this conversation.
Nick Clason (04:38):
So, uh, over here, before we dive into that though, over 4,000 churches close their door yearly, over 4,000 churches. This from npr.org. Um, and the estimate is this, in 2019, the year before the pandemic, before the pandemic, keep that in mind. So the pandemic was already, or, or was, or was going to be hard on people. This right here, right? Like this is pre pandemic, more Protestant churches closed than opened in the us. Um, 2014, 4,000 churches opened, and 3,700 churches closed 2019. Then that number started to shift and get a little bit more. And so churches are slowly becoming, um, starting to close at a rate greater than their opening. And you know that with that trend over time, that's going to make churches more and more obsolete, less and less relevant. Now, is that because Generation z generation alpha don't want to go to our church, perhaps, and there may be some things worth learning, but why?
Nick Clason (05:45):
And where does social media play into this? I'm gonna give you that in a second. But first, 56% of Generation Z claim to be Christian. And you might think, oh, that's pretty good. That's encouraging. I thought that might be lower. I did. However, 25% of Gen Z claim to have no faith at all. James Emery White wrote a book called The Rise of the Nuns. And this is that trend right here being played out. This is the highest classification of no religion at all by any generation. Gen Z, millennials, Xers, boomers, all the things. Gen Z the highest at 25% claiming to actually have no faith whatsoever. Furthermore, the five biggest terms, when, when, uh, this is done by a study from Barna, the five biggest terms that Generation Z used to describe their faith were these five growing at 47%, open at 38%, curious at 35%, spiritual at 33%, and then exploring at 32%.
Nick Clason (06:48):
And so what that tells me is that Gen Z, while they may have a classification, right, of not having religion, um, not claiming one at all, they are open and they are willing and they are curious. And so I think that pairs well and creates a really good kind of groundwork and ecosystem for us as student ministry leaders and personnel to, uh, continue to answer some of their questions. Here was where this gets fascinating, and I think personally where the rubber meets the road. In response to this statement, Barna said, Hey, the statement is this. The church does not answer my questions. 13% said that that statement was completely true. 13% said the church does not answer my questions 24%. That's somewhat true. So more true than not that the church doesn't answer their questions, um, 28%, somewhat not true. Uh, so, uh, it's getting a little bit better.
Nick Clason (07:46):
And then 35% said that's, that's not true at all. Okay? What I wanna highlight and kind of pull out there is that 37%, almost four out of 10 people would say that the church doesn't really answer their questions yet. However, they would classify themselves as growing, open, curious, spiritual, and exploring. And so if there's an opportunity for the church to lean into a demographic that is curious, open exploring, um, asking questions, why would we not answer those questions? Well, I hear your rebuttal on the other end of the camera, right? Well, I, I am handling those, uh, questions I am asking and answering big questions through my teaching series, through my bible studies, through my devotionals, and that's great. However, pew Research recently said that 58% of evangelical protestant church attenders attend church get this at least one time a week, 58%. So that means out of your, uh, your a hundred percent membership, people who call your church your student ministry home, only six out of 10 are actually coming on a week to week basis to even hear that teaching.
Nick Clason (09:00):
Also, Warren Bird, on our last podcast, we, I, I shared some, some snippets from Warren Bird, uh, but Warren Bird says this, he says, people tend to over exaggerate when it comes to this question. When it comes to their church attendants. They overinflate the numbers, right? They want to look better perhaps than they actually are. And if 58% are actually attending at least one time a week, then there's this to keep in mind that there are still 40% who of their own admission and of their own classification are not hearing your weekly messages unless they're actually there because only 58% are attending at a week to week sort of clip. And so what should I do about that? You're asking, you're like, I am trying to answer their questions. They say they're open, they're spiritually engaging. This is where I think that all churches, especially all youth ministries, should be posting their weekly message content.
Nick Clason (09:55):
And you should be doing so uploading to YouTube. Okay? Here's the thing. You probably already have a soundboard that you're using in your room, and if you do, in most cases, you're able to add a minimum capture the audio, and you can start uploading that to podcasts. But YouTube is king right now, and I wanna share with y'all why after this. So here's the reality. If you head back into the archives of any of my podcasts, YouTube videos, um, we talk a lot about YouTube, in fact, episode, um, 33 http://www.hybridministry.xyz/033, link in the description link in the show notes talks about how to start a YouTube channel completely with links to all the gigs that you're gonna need and how to do that directly off of your phone. It will help you upgrade your audios just ever so slightly. I am now using, I got a couple lights here.
Nick Clason (10:49):
I got a camera that I'm recording off of. I'm also going to drop here in just a couple weeks, probably next week. Um, a a complete gear rundown of us after a year of YouTube upgrading our camera equipment. And I say a year, I look at my watch here, which actually gives me my date today as I record. This is July 31st. We officially launched our YouTube channel at the student ministry that I work in, in January 1st of this year because we, our church changed their name. And so I was holding the YouTube channel to launch along with the name change and all that stuff. We, so far this year on YouTube have posted well over, um, I think it's over 200 videos. Um, I'm trying to go to it right here on live, that auto channel player player, oh, 399 videos. I just uploaded a short this morning, uh, by this afternoon, I'll post my second short.
Nick Clason (11:42):
We'll be at video number 400 since January 1st of this year until now, July 31st. We are currently at 202 subscribers. Not crazy numbers, not anything that you wanna write home about necessarily. But if you had the opportunity to reach 200 additional people in your student ministry or in that 202, there are probably people who, well, I do know this. There are students who subscribe to our channel. There are parents who subscribe to our channel. Would you not want the opportunity to speak to those people? And that's the key, right? If Pew Research says only 58% of people are attending church once a week, then YouTube offers you an opportunity to share that message with them. But why YouTube? 3.48 billion people according to Hootsuite, roughly 45% of the world's population use social media. That's where they are millennials, which is not necessarily our target demographic. That's us as the youth pastors.
Nick Clason (12:39):
However, this is a trend worth watching because millennials are setting the pace, I think for some of these younger generations. Millennials say that they prefer YouTube to traditional tv two to one. That's crazy to me. I don't, but that's how millennials are, are consuming it. And that's also how Gen Z and Gen Alpha are consuming it. I had a kid yesterday walk up to me and I was recording some videos for some of our social media stuff, and he's like, oh, I wanna do it. I wanna do it. Look, I have a YouTube channel. I have over a thousand subscribers, and I was low-key jealous of him. 'cause that's my goal right now is to get my channel up to a thousand subscribers. I was like, no, you don't. Let me see. And he showed me, and he is just doing like goofy Minecraft tutorials and stuff like that.
Nick Clason (13:17):
He has 1.1 K subscribers via his YouTube channel. It is bunkers. Uh, also check this out, 51% of YouTube users say that they visit YouTube, get this daily. So why should we be on YouTube for all of those reasons? So if you wanna know how to start your own YouTube channel as a church, as a student ministry, you definitely should hit up episode 0 3 3 link in the show notes for that, and we will help make that happen. Um, help you get the gear and all that type of stuff going. Now, here's the thing in our context, this is why I want you to hear this in our context. We are in a large auditorium space. We have a soundboard, but it's not retrofitted and it's not graded to livestream. Okay? Our big church auditorium is, but our main service is not. And so because I didn't, uh, we're gonna be delivering live messages and, um, I, I also wanna post to YouTube.
Nick Clason (14:09):
I had to have a kind of like reconciling moment. What I decided was I was gonna do video. If you're watching our YouTube right now, it's just like this direct to camera. I'm talking directly into the camera with a scripted teaching video. We've got a teleprompter. It goes right in front of the camera here and it scrolls and you can watch it and you can read your notes and you can deliver a message with a YouTube hook that's hopefully engaging, um, with video, uh, lower thirds, uh, text that'll bounce in, bounce out sound effects. You can weave in other clips, B-roll, all that type of stuff. But it's made for YouTube. It's not just a camera perched in the back of the room, which is what most of us do for time reasons. And here's why that's important. In episode six of this podcast, me and my previous co-host, Matt Johnson, looked at some of the findings of the Future Church.
Nick Clason (15:00):
Um, this was from Barna. They, they dropped an ebook a little over a year ago called Six Questions About the Future of the Hybrid Church Experience. We pulled out some stats, we chatted about it. I'll drop the link to that episode in the show notes. I'll also drop the link to the Barna ebook in the show notes if you wanna explore more about that. But I wanna 0.2 things out to you from that ebook. It says, 60%, 60% of those participating in church that offer an online service during the pandemic say that this is the only digital offering that the church makes, their live stream of their service. And furthermore, 63% of church adults believe that the church should use digital resources for the purposes of spiritual formation and disciple discipleship. 63% of churched adults, not Gen Z, not gen alpha, the church adults in this classification.
Nick Clason (15:55):
So this is millennials, this is Xers, this is even maybe some boomers giving us some of this data. Um, according to this ebook, they have a quote in there that says, churches, if if churches more than a building, can digital ministry be more than a sermon? And I would contend the answer to that is unequivocally yes. We're gonna dive into the nitty gritty, the tactical, and give you a free downloadable resource on how stick around for that. But before we do, I wanna drop one more eye-opening thing out of this ebook. It said, this faith, this is, uh, a stat I'll, I'll put the, um, graph on YouTube if you're following and watching there. Faith expression during the pandemic, the question was, do you use the internet? The percent answered yes. Um, there are three categories practicing Christians, church, adults, and dropouts. 66% of practicing Christians say that they use, uh, faith, uh, in the internet.
Nick Clason (16:48):
They use the internet for faith practices during the pandemic at 66%. Church adults at 56%. And dropouts, even those who've dropped out at 36% say that, um, as a faith supplement, 52% of practicing Christians, 42% church adults, and 30% of dropouts as a faith supplement. And then as a substitute for physical church, 50% of practicing Christians say that 46% of church adults say that. And 30% of dropouts would claim that. In addition, they broke that out, uh, with, uh, a deeper classification of church, gen Z Church, millennials, church Gen X, and church boomers, obviously, no surprise to you, gen Z was the highest of that. 67% as, um, for faith purposes, 56% as a faith supplement and as a substitute for physical church, uh, that was at 58%. So Gen Z, and mind you, this was old enough. So at least 18 years of age Gen Z.
Nick Clason (17:43):
So that's not counting kids in our youth ministry. And that's not counting Alpha, 'cause none of them were old enough to be pulled on survey. So if it's that high in churched adult Gen Z, how much more for the teenagers in your youth ministry? Uh, James Emery White has a quote out of his most recent book, hybrid Church, rethinking the Church in a post-digital age said the vision. This vision, talking about the metaverse, this vision led Zuckerberg, c e o of Facebook to change the name of its company to Meta. Zuckerberg described a grandiose vision of a metaverse as an even more immersive and embodied internet. When or where you're gonna be able to do almost anything that you can, uh, imagine, get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create as well, uh, as entirely new categories that don't even fit how we think about computers or phones today.
Nick Clason (18:37):
If you, uh, wanna reference point, think of the movie Avatar. The Metaverse would be a shared social space where avatars represent users, a world that avatars interact and inhabit. And in that metaverse, you could own virtual property just as you would physical property or even create, uh, your, even create your own virtual property. Not to mention, you can buy and sell property. The last step in achieving all this would be a full three D telepresence v uh, via VR or AR glasses. Hubo technology is a technology company that manages hybrid and virtual events, predict that soon events will be, um, less about chronology and speakers and more about exploration and interaction. That quote right there is worth weight in gold. Um, I, and I'm just kind of picking it up 'cause I read this at 1:00 AM last night, the end of a standard webinar is coming near and being replaced with live streaming VR entertainment and Oculus Rift parties.
Nick Clason (19:34):
What Emory White says is this, and this is what made me pull this quote out. Needless to say, the internet is not gonna be flat for too much longer. And why do we want to do this for Gen Z and Gen Alpha? This is the internet that they are going to be ushering in and growing up in. They're spending time on the internet, on their phones. And while there are, uh, digital hygiene things that we as youth pastors need to model and teach our students to do, I think gone are the days of just, Hey, no phones. Like, yeah, that's easier. And we all know that like reducing our technology use helps us. However, you got a new kid walking into your student ministry, are you really gonna take his phone and lock it up in a locker and tell 'em you can't have it until the end?
Nick Clason (20:18):
Is he coming back after his first week of visiting your church? Probably not. But if you help teach students, Hey, here's technology, here's resources. Here's a way that you can grow in your faith beyond the walls of this sermon and service while I'm up here trying to answer your questions, but give you more to study with because this is what I was studying this week as I was preparing this content. And here's something for you. Here's a P D F, here's a checklist, here's a devotional, here's a prayer guide, whatever the case might that's gonna help students grow in their faith. And all of that can exist and live on your digital platforms. In particular YouTube. But wait, I'm so busy, but wait, I don't have time. I'm already preparing messages. I'm sitting in meetings. I'm running C c b or I'm running church data management reports.
Nick Clason (21:05):
I don't have an admin. I used to have an admin. I might get an admin. I'm probably never gonna have an admin. And I'm stacking chairs and I'm repainting the youth room and I'm patching the wall from the kid whose butt fell through the thing. I get it. I'm there. I'm a youth pastor being in youth mystery 12 and a half years. Here's why this, uh, this is why we are dropping this resource. So we are going to be giving you all the month long social media posting tool done for you and your youth ministry free ebook link in the show notes. When you download that, you're gonna get a link to two eBooks, my TikTok from scratch, and now this month long youth ministry social media thing. Let's dive into what is actually going to be in that. Let's go. So we will detail this a little bit more in the ebook, but essentially I'm giving you a basically 40 ideas that you can post, uh, five days a week.
Nick Clason (22:01):
So there's seven days in a week. I recommend that you take two off just to practice Sabbath and, uh, not working whatever your two days off that you want to be. So for example, I post Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I don't work on Fridays in the office or Saturday. So I don't post either of those days. And each of those days I post two tos. I recently talked a couple episodes back about how we went from three down to two, and then I'm gonna give you three or I'm, I'm sorry. I'm gonna give you, uh, a video thing to post every single day. So for me, my Sunday, I post the message hook from our teaching video that we do, we we capture it like this, then I clip it out and make it vertical. And I post a game on Monday. I'll do Meme Monday, and then I'll post some sort of spiritual practice video, either a talking head or pre uh, existing resource.
Nick Clason (22:50):
I have some resources in the show notes on Download youth ministry that you can ahead and grab if you want. Um, on uh, Tuesday I'll post a message clip, and then I'll do some sort of game or fun thing, uh, Wednesday, another spiritual practice video, and then a recap of our Wednesday night youth ministry, just some B roll and some audio that I did the sync auto sync on TikTok around cap cut. And then finally the third message clip, and then another game or activity. And so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna help teach you how to clip those messages. Um, I want to, I wanna let you know about a, a resource. I'm gonna include the link in the show notes called Auto Pod. It is taking my long form sequence in Adobe Premier Pro and shrinking it and making it vertical. That's something that you can use and that's helpful, uh, to you if you are a, a video editor in that way.
Nick Clason (23:38):
If not, just clip it in on your phone using cap cut and, uh, you cap cut's a super powerful tool you can use. Um, and then, uh, and then also I'm gonna give you about 10 to 15 different game ideas or activity type ideas that we've done in our youth ministry. You can check it out, link to, um, you can check out our student ministry link in the description, cross Creek Student Ministry, social, go to our shorts, watch just some of the goofy stuff that we do. But I'm gonna give you ideas on how you can repurpose like d y m type games or other fun things like that and use it on camera or, or one thing I did yesterday was I, uh, me and a student took the camera around and he asked people, Hey, we're going back to school soon. What do these back to school?
Nick Clason (24:22):
Emoji phrases mean? He'd show them a picture on the phone and then they would try to guess, um, and to like incentivize them to actually choose to be on camera. We'd give 'em a fruit snack if they said yes, and then I captured it, and then I'm gonna go edit it and post, um, and have the, uh, emojis pop in. But if you don't wanna do all that right, you can just video it and just do like a quick picture and picture overlay of the emoji phrase. So there's all kinds of ideas, but all of that is going to be done for you. 40 ideas, replicatable, reproducible, the same framework, but also different videos every single week on your social media because vertical short form video is still king, bro, I missed all that. Great. We offer free transcripts for every single episode at our, uh, podcast page, hybridministry.xyz.
Nick Clason (25:14):
This is episode 0 6 0. So you can go there, pick up the free transcript, also link in the show notes for free editing presets for my TikTok video and now my, um, month long social posting tool done for you for youth ministries. Check that out. And hey, listen, if you're not in youth ministry, grab it and adapt it to your church. Because here's the thing, you don't have to just be silly and goofy in youth ministry churches wanna see their pastors having fun as well. So, uh, hope that you guys found this episode helpful. Hey, if you did, would you do me a favor and just share it? I would be forever grateful if you shared it, if you liked it, if you rated it, if you reviewed it, if you dropped a comment so I could engage with you in the comments. So pumped to be here walking through this with you.
Nick Clason (25:56):
Listen, I'm in the trenches just like you. If you're in youth ministry, if you're in church communications, if you're a social media manager for a church or business, I'm right there with you. I'm doing this podcast in my free time early morning before everyone else gets into work. And then I'm gonna turn around. I'm gonna start working right after this because I'm doing it with you. And so I want to be along on this journey with you. Make sure you follow us on TikTok, subscribe on YouTube, hit me up on Instagram. And until next time, and as always, we are making digital discipleship easy and accessible. Don't forget to stay hybrid.
27 min
August 24, 2023 Episode 059: 🎙️ Exploring the Future of the Hybrid Church with Warren Byrd 🌐
Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Podcast! In this exciting episode, we dive deep into the realm of the future Hybrid Church for Churches and Youth Ministires! We'll take a look at a recent Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast Episode and a inspect a snippet from what the visionary Warren Byrd had to say about Digital Minittry and Church Marketing in Disciplship and Evangelism.
🔍 What's the Buzz About?
In this thought-provoking discussion, Carey Nieuwhof and Warren Byrd explore the dynamic landscape of the Hybrid Church model. They shed light on the cutting-edge trends and unveil the fascinating possibilities that await the Church in the digital age.
🌐 Embracing the Digital Ministry
Discover how churches and youth ministries can harness the power of technology and digital platforms to expand their outreach. Unravel the secrets to effective digital ministry and explore innovative ways to leverage social media for church growth.
💻 Marketing the Church for Impact
Join us as we explore successful church social media strategies that bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Learn how your ministry can create a strong online presence, connect with your congregation, and engage with a broader audience.
📲 Social Media: Friend or Foe?
In this candid discussion, Nick, your host unpack the potential pitfalls of social media in the church context while also highlighting its incredible power to have incredible outreach potential and foster community.
🤝 The Jury is Still Out
As the Hybrid Church concept gains momentum, the discussion isn't complete without acknowledging the questions and uncertainties surrounding its implementation. Delve into the gray areas and explore where the future of the Hybrid Church is still unknown.
Whether you're a seasoned pastor, a curious church member, or a tech-savvy youth pastor, this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast promises to leave you inspired and equipped to embrace the future of the church in a digital world.
🔔 Subscribe now and join us on this enlightening journey into the world of Hybrid Ministry! Don't miss out on any future episodes, packed with insightful conversations and actionable strategies for a thriving Hybrid Church.
👉 Stay connected:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
SHOWNOTES
📹 Watch Carey's Interview with Warren: https://youtu.be/u2zj9XPPxlI?t=4715
🎧 Listen to Carey's Interview with Warren: https://careynieuwhof.com/episode574/
📹 Hybrid Ministry on the Importance of the Church Website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxndpebNlbw&t=2s
🎧 Hybrid Ministry on the Importance of the Church Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/040
✍️ Transcripts Provided by Rev.com Try Rev.com for yourself: https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa
TIMECODES
00:00-02:14 Intro
02:14-05:54 Warren Byrd on What's here to stay with Hybrid Ministry and where the jury is still out.
05:54-10:53 Nick Responds to Warren's Take on the Future of Hybrid Ministry
10:53-13:57 Hybrid & Digital work for Evangelism. Do they work for Discipleship?
13:57-21:36 What aspects of Discipleship can be turned digital?
21:36-23:15 Outro
HybridMinistryPodcast #DigitalMinistry #SocialMediaChurch #HybridChurch #ChurchGrowth #ChurchSocialMedia #DigitalOutreach #FaithInnovation
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up everyone? Welcome back to another edition of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Clayson, excited to be with you. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll notice a little bit of a different setup. We did, um, some filming today. A two things. Number one, it's not air conditioned in here, so I'm gonna be super sweaty, so just roll with that. But b uh, got some new lights, got some new audio equipment. Um, one of these days I'm gonna do a step by step, like every single thing that we did, and I'll release it to you guys. Today's not that day, but because we're in here and because I was already set, I was like, I'm just gonna film in here. Typical day, filming day. Uh, normally I come in early and film and then get to work on like work stuff, but today I had to get all this stuff set up 'cause I didn't know how to use it.
Nick Clason (00:51):
It was brand new, literally just ordered it last week. Came in over the weekend, so I wanted to get it all set up. Uh, so kind of displaced my time, moved it around a little bit. All that to be said. In today's episode, I want to talk about a recent Carrie Nho leadership podcast. I'm a subscriber, love his show. Um, if you haven't ever gone on there, go check it out. But he did a recent, um, episode with Warren Bird and, um, another guy named JJ something or other. Um, I'll put the link in the show notes. You can check it out. But it, it was about, um, uh, church planting and like the future. And at about the one minute and 22, uh, one hour, 22 minute Mark Warren Bird dropped some absolute gold that had to do with what we are, uh, dealing with in this podcast.
Nick Clason (01:36):
So I want to have y'all, uh, take a listen to that and, uh, just share with you guys some of my thoughts with it. So, hey, hit the link in the show notes for all the things you need, your transcript, couple of freebies. We have motion graphics that you can get for Adobe Premiere Pro. And we also have the free ebook about, um, uploading and posting to TikTok all from your app. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube, and we are on TikTok. So without any further ado, let's dive into this episode titled, um, why does hybrid ministry matter? What do we know is staying and where, where's the jury Still out? Let's go. So, like I said, uh, in the most recent Karen Newh, not most recent, uh, most recent one I listened to, Carrie Newh episode is out from a couple months ago. Warren Bird dropped a couple statements. I just want you to hear it directly from him, and then I will respond. So go ahead, take a listen.
Carey Nieuwhof (02:30):
Warren, any, uh, data or observations on church plants and technology?
Warren Byrd (02:36):
Yeah. Uh, let's divide it into here to stay and the jury's still out. Okay. Uh, here to stay is people check out your church by its website. First used to be the parking lot was the first impression. The website, whatever size church you are, you're gonna check it out. Mm-hmm. , they're gonna ask two questions, fundamentally, are people like me there? And is this a a, is there a scary factor? Is there something that you know, is gonna weird me out too much? Um, also the newcomer, uh, connection. Now, it may not be their first week there, but scan the ur uh, the QR code. Um, tell us either your email or your phone or both, and that becomes a primary communication tool. I'm just amazed at, at especially the younger generation, so willing, uh, to give that up. But carrying it further hybrid stuff.
Warren Byrd (03:29):
Like my wife and I just finished a, a couple's marriage class in our church. We kicked it off in person. We ended it with a happily ever, ever, ever after party afterwards. But all the nights of the group were online. So this couple with five kids, you know, they, they finished the last kid in bed, they flopped down on the sofa, embraced each other, and were part of the class. They would never have gotten a sitter, uh, driven somewhere. And, and maybe one week, but not week after week after week. So the hybrid experience is here to stay. Now, where the jury is still out for churches, large and small is not the evangelism and the outreach. And jj, it's such a wonderful story of the California story. Those will happen in, and now due to the pandemic, the gospel's in every language accessible all around the world for people to hear, it's a brilliant strategy as the silver, one of the silver linings of the pandemic.
Warren Byrd (04:23):
But, but is is it primarily a member equipping and evangelistic strategy, or is it also a discipleship strategy? Mm-hmm. , can discipleship also happen at the same level? Now granted, I can't hug. Yeah. I can't, you know, like, like good Friday for me. Yes. Good question. When I, I'm not that emotional, but every time I do one of those crosses where I nail the nails in, and that's me nailing the nails and cry, well, I can't do that online mm-hmm. , uh, but in person it just, it moves me. So there's certain in-person that that, is it better or is it not? And I was just last week with a bunch of executive pastors from megachurches of a particular denomination, and they're ambivalent. You know, they're still deciding what to do. Yeah. There are still, there are a few pioneers, uh, Kerry, you wrote the forward to, uh, Tim Lucas's, uh, liquid Church book, liquid church and liquid Church, uh, uh, 5,500 before the pandemic says, okay, we may reach thousands in person, but let's figure out how to seamlessly reach tens of thousands of people beyond that. And church plants are with, with whatever their capacity level, depending on their size, are likewise saying, can we have an online impact of discipleship even beyond the broadcasting? So jury's still out on a lot of things, but, uh, I'm excited about the possibilities.
Nick Clason (05:55):
Okay, so we had a couple of things to say. The first is this, um, what's here to stay the church website, I'll drop a link in the show notes, but we had a all episode all about, um, church websites and how important, uh, your church website is just about like street to seat and all that stuff. Like people are still looking at and viewing websites. And if you have not yet put any effort or money into your website, go ahead and do that. And honestly, what I might recommend is I would get somebody who hasn't, who doesn't go to your church and put them on your website and ask them what's confusing, what's broken, what's missing, what's still needed, and all of that stuff will help point you in the right direction of somebody who is going to be an outsider and is going to be utilizing and using your church website.
Nick Clason (06:44):
So, uh, that's a great place to start. He also talks about, uh, next generations being willing to scan QR codes or fill out forms to give out necessary information that is marketing 1 0 1. And so if you can capture people's name and phone number and or email, you have just about everything you need to at least get started in nurturing their relationship. Oftentimes, churches want all of it all at once. Like, what's your name? What's your address? What's your email address, what's your phone number? What's your social security number? And it's like, they're not there yet, bro. Like, give them, like, trade your email address for a free mug or trade your email address for a donation to some sort of like missions agency or something like that. But you can't get it all. But churches just get greedy and frankly lazy because they're unwilling to massage the relationship.
Nick Clason (07:35):
And I can hear you on the other end because I'm, I've been there, right? I'm like, ah, we need all that info and it'd be great. Yeah. If we did okay. However, like give people time to warm up to you. All right? A lot of times people use marketing, um, in church, we don't know. We don't talk and do a lot of like marketing type stuff, but, but a lot of times what needs to happen is we need to like date them first before we marry them. You know what I'm saying? And a lot of times in churches, we just, we want all the married information like, sign this birth certificate, sign up, you're a member now. Like, who, who, hold on. Like, I just was checking it out for one week. Um, but Warburg does say that there is much more willingness in the next generation to give out and, and distribute that type of information.
Nick Clason (08:20):
And so use that to your advantage. Uh, the other thing you talked about was hybrid stuff. And this is really where I wanted to like zone in because he talked about a Zoom class for like a, a marriage class that they did. Um, that's I think where a lot of people's minds go when I say hybrid, and that's quite frankly one of my least favorite options. Um, I think it's a necessary evil and can be used strategically, but like when I say like hybrid, I don't just mean like zoom small groups. I can, um, I much more mean like showing up where people live their lives in Bible reading plans, in, um, group chats, in social media, in Facebook groups, like all type, all types of things like that. That's what I personally mean when I talk about hybrid. And so the same is true, um, with what he's talking about.
Nick Clason (09:12):
Like, you can do those types of things, right? Like you can make those types of, um, classes or whatever via hybrid, via zoom, via whatever. But, um, that, that wouldn't be my only thing. I think podcasts are another amazing, uh, tool to be utilized. A lot of people, um, have the bandwidth desire and willingness to listen to super long form things. And so like if you're a pastor, you know, that like you cut a lot of things out of your sermon for sake of time and brevity and whatever the case might might be. Um, a podcast is a way to, to give more information that might still be helpful, informative, relevant, uh, that you don't have time to put in a sermon. And so, you know, like if you, again, if you've ever preached like, you know, that there are always things that you often have to cut.
Nick Clason (10:01):
And so, um, podcasts are a great long form tool. They can also double and take place on, on YouTube. Okay? Um, and so I thought, I thought what he had to say there was, was fascinating and a lot of the stuff that I, um, have talked about on this podcast, church websites, connections, hybrid stuff, he, he hit all that. And so, you know, as a creative of this podcast, I was like, yes, you know, Warren Bird is like the Yoda of church data and like the, the just like landscape of church growth and trajectories and what's next and what's coming, like all that stuff. So if he says it, I'm, I'm pumped about it. Okay. What I think was interesting, um, and what I wanna talk about a little bit is when he talked about the jury still being out. So let's dive into that discussion a little bit deeper.
Nick Clason (10:54):
All right, so he said the jury is still out basically saying the digital and hybrid work for evangelism, but do they work for discipleship? Um, if you remember, he used a very tactical example of Good Friday and nailing the nail into a cross. And he's like, that's just so monumental and meaningful to me, and I agree with him. Um, but that is not the only way in which people experience hands-on tactical discipleship, especially newer and, and younger generations. They're much more inclined and willing to explore things through a digital lens, relationships through a digital lens, um, and lean more into like hybrid type of opportunities and options. And so, like at my church, like what Warren broke it down to is like reaching people and or evangelism, like bringing people into your church, which I would argue is necessarily evangelism. It's evangelism from an organizational standpoint.
Nick Clason (11:57):
Like as a church organization, we have to be able, ready, willing to, to bring in guests. But like, is that really evangelism? I would argue evangelism is, you know, a a meaningful, a person taking a meaningful next step to Jesus, particularly one who doesn't classify themself as a Christian. And more often than not, that happens in a interpersonal one-on-one relationship. That's just how I would classify evangelism. Discipleship, I think is quite frankly the same thing. And, um, those evangelism and discipleship used to all be one word, right? It was just telling people about Jesus and then making people more like Jesus so that they would eventually go multiply themselves and their lives into other people's lives. But we, we drew a line at the moment of conversion and we switched evangelism, um, as people who don't have a relationship with Jesus. And discipleship is people who do have a relationship with Jesus, but that's not what Warren was talking about, right?
Nick Clason (12:55):
But he was talking about reaching people and then actually growing them into a mature follower of Christ. So, um, you probably have a definition of what a disciple is at your church. Every church in America probably has some definition of what a disciple is at their church. It all is derived in some way, shape or form. Probably off of the great commission at least I would argue that it should be, because that was Jesus's very deliberate specific commands for us to go make disciples of all nations. That being said, I have a definition, we have a definition in our church about discipleship. So I wanted to explain what that is and then break down those three different elements of a disciple and talk through some hybrid ideas. Again, I'm not vouching for or saying this is successful, not successful, whatever. I'm simply just saying, if you look at the definition of a disciple, these are ways in which digital ministry and hybrid ministry can be supplemented and or utilized to help bring about mature, um, a mature follower of Christ.
Nick Clason (13:54):
So let's talk about that on the other side. Okay? So like I said, my church classifies and breaks down disciple, uh, we call it a three D disciple. Um, I creative, whatever I get it, um, wasn't mine. So not taking any credit for it or flack for it, just it is what it is. If you're a church, medium marketing manager, if you're a church, if you're a youth pastor, like you probably inherited something like this unless you're the lead pastor that came up with it. In most cases, if we're on church staff, we are experiencing these things and now we just have to figure out how to carry out the vision of where we work. That's just the reality of, of being in a position like this. So we have, um, a disciple who's devoted, developing and deployed. Okay? So devoted is simply learning how to work with God.
Nick Clason (14:40):
And I thought there are tons of hybrid options in that if we're trying to help teach someone how to walk with God, there is a, a really great interpersonal moment and element that can take place, especially if you have like a mentorship relationship. And quite frankly, you should, you should do that. You should be leaning into some sort of mentoring relationship, someone who's older than you, who's further along than you and can help take you to the next level. However, there are personal disciplines that I believe also need to take place. Bible reading, um, prayer, and I would argue, and I don't know that this is a widespread thought, but scripture memory and each of those three things, Bible reading, prayer, scripture, memory, I think there are ways in which you can lean into a digital option. Digital flashcards, digital fill in the blank. There's, there's an app I use, a bible memorization app I use for memorizing scripture, um, Bible reading and prayer, both in the YouVersion Bible app.
Nick Clason (15:37):
There are tools and like assets and parts and pieces within the YouVersion Bible app where I can read the Bible more robustly. I can read it with friends, I can do it in community, I can prayer, I can offer prayer requests. They have a daily like guided prayer moment. All those things I think are tools. And if your church has, has the money, has the way, the ability, the means, the resources to pull some of those things together and create an app or create resources, all the more power to you. If not, you can just point people towards some of these other resources, curate some of the good ones that help and have helped you grow in your faith and can help other people grow in their faith as they lean more into their devoted ness and their walk with God, right? Again, this is from my church's definition of a disciple, the second D.
Nick Clason (16:25):
So the first D is devoted, the second D is developing, so they're devoted to Christ to learn to walk with God. And then they're also growing, uh, talk about, uh, we, we use this phrase growing in the character and the competencies of Jesus. So more and more like Jesus as well as, um, doing more and more things like Jesus, one of the first, second or third John I can't remember, says, if you want to, um, follow Jesus, you need to learn to walk as he walked. That's the competencies part, right? Doing the same things, doing the things of Jesus. And so how can we help grow people to be more, um, have a better character, more like Jesus, um, and doing more of the things like Jesus. Um, I, I just actually shared in this exact seat with my students via video for a series coming up about a light bulb versus a laser.
Nick Clason (17:15):
Both of them are lights, but one is an intensified, focused and like very intentional light. And one is just illuminating the room. Both are light. One is one has incredible power. And I would say as you are developing into the character and into the competencies of Jesus, one of the ways to harness that is through relationships and through like direct accountability. Not just friendship, not just like small group, like surface level and maybe even a little deeper than surface level, but actual meaningful, like intentional relationships. Paul David Tripp has a, a quote where he says, you need to be intentionally ob protrusive in somebody's life. And that's what I mean by accountability. Can you accomplish that digitally? I don't think so. Um, there is an element of a one-on-one relationship, a need and need type of relationship. That being said, the accountability partner I have in my life lives 900 miles away from me.
Nick Clason (18:11):
And we talk every single week, once a week, 6:00 AM every Monday morning. And it's a, an expected phone call that's not in person, quote unquote. It's, it is a life on life relationship, but it's done using the means of technology. That being said, we went to college together and grew up together and have raised our kids together at times. And so like, there was definitely a life on life moment that brought us closer together that then allowed us to use technology to continue on in the relationship as opposed to just simply abandoning it, which is what often happens when distance takes place. The third one is deployed, which is simply the idea of being sent out, right? Jesus sent out the 12, then he sent out the, um, 72, and then the 72 that they reached, he, he sent all those out as well. So we saw within Jesus' life, four generations of multiplication.
Nick Clason (19:01):
How can we deploy people using technology and hybrid? Again, the more like you hone this, I think, and if you have an actual nomenclature for it and strategy around it, you can build infrastructures, websites, apps, eBooks, like all kinds of things to give people regardless of where they are. And if you've sent people out overseas, you can still put resources in their hands to help them as they are reaching people, reaching their neighborhoods, reaching their coworkers, having some of these like conversations, these Jesus, these evangelism, these discipleship conversations. I think what Warren is saying is like, there's a life on life moment. An aspect, an element that takes place where people grow. And I agree with that. And he's saying, can digital replace it? And again, I've said this before, but I think if we try to just create, if we, if we say that a Sunday morning sermon is the only place that discipleship happens, and then by recording it and live streaming it, that's our like hybrid or like our digital option, then no, I don't think that that's actually helping people become more developed in their character and competency of Jesus more devoted to him, more able to multiply themselves and send other people out and all the, like, just from a sermon being online, probably not, but a more robust tool, more robust resources that are out there I think can, can help people, right?
Nick Clason (20:28):
Like knowledge can be transferred from one person to another. An element of being devoted element of developing for sure things that are communicated clearly and concisely through that transfer of knowledge. I think those things can happen. Can life transformation happen in hybrid? I would say yes. I don't think it looks the way we think it looks, and I think it probably requires a pretty massive overhaul, um, to be able to do that. But I definitely think it's possible. And here's where the rub often happens. You have to have buy-in with the people who hold the money and write the checks and do those things to get some of those things up off the ground. Because without that, you're simply just like the social media guy trying to do all that through Instagram posts. And can it be done? I think so. Is it the most effective way?
Nick Clason (21:22):
Probably not. Probably not. Um, and so that's how, that's how I would classify it and that's how I would answer and respond to Warren's question about hybrid ministry. Yes, but with some infrastructure and some overhauling for sure. Well, hey, thanks everyone for sticking around, uh, for the duration of this entire episode. I hope you found it helpful. Go listen, like, subscribe to the Kerry Newh episode, especially that part about Warren Bird. Go subscribe to us on YouTube. Give us a, like, all that stuff helps us get found, indexed and seen by the people, um, out there on YouTube that are asking some of these same questions like, is digital discipleship even a possibility in today's world? And, um, 'cause I think it is, and I think that's a meaningful message as we move forward, especially into the next and younger generations, um, of our church members and even those people who have not yet discovered our church. Hit the link in the show notes again for full transcripts of this episode and every other episode that we have over at hybridministry.xyz, grab the Adobe Premier Pro Transitions, grab the free ebook, go like us on Instagrams, follow us on TikTok, follow us on YouTube. And until next time, and as always, we're helping make digital discipleship easy. Stay Hybrid!
24 min
August 17, 2023Episode 058: 🔥 Revolutionizing Ministry with AI: Unleashing Digital Marvels for Churches & Youth Ministries 🔥
🔥 Revolutionizing Ministry with AI: Unleashing Digital Marvels for Churches & Youth Ministries 🔥
Are you ready to embark on an extraordinary journey where technology and spirituality converge? Welcome to our groundbreaking Hybrid Ministry Show, where Nick will delve into the transformative power of AI in the realm of Church and Youth Ministry digital marketing, media, and content creation!
In this awe-inspiring episode, we unlock the secrets of AI-driven tools that will take your ministry to new heights:
[OpenAI.com](openai.com) or ChatGPT - The revolutionary AI language model that empowers you to craft captivating sermons, impactful blog posts, and engage with your congregation on a whole new level. Say goodbye to writer's block and embrace seamless content creation!
Generative AI in Adobe Photoshop Beta - Witness the creative prowess of AI as it collaborates with you in Photoshop, co-creating jaw-dropping artwork, banners, and designs for your ministry's online presence. Unleash the true potential of your artistic visions! (Adobe Creative Cloud: https://www.adobe.com/?sdid=49F59KY6)
Express.Adobe.com - Transform your storytelling with AI-powered video editing! Experience the ease and efficiency of crafting compelling videos, testimonials, and ministry updates using Adobe's Express platform. Say hello to stunning visual narratives! (Get Adobe Creative Cloud: https://www.adobe.com/?sdid=49F59KY6)
CREATIVE CLOUD PRICING
•$419.88/ Annualized
Autopod.FM, an Adobe Premiere Pro Editing Extension - Elevate your video editing game to celestial heights! Uncover the brilliance of AI-assisted editing with Autopod.FM, streamlining your video production workflow like never before. (Try AutoPod: https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com/)
AUTOPOD PRICING
•$29/Month
•$348/Annualized
Join our expert guests, seasoned ministry leaders, and tech visionaries, as we explore how these AI tools seamlessly blend with your spiritual mission, enabling you to reach more souls, create impactful content, and connect with your community in ways you've never imagined.
Prepare to be inspired, amazed, and equipped to revolutionize your ministry in the digital age. Hit the 'Subscribe' button now and share this video with your fellow ministry enthusiasts. Together, let's embrace the future of ministry with AI as our guiding light!
🌟 Don't forget to like, comment, and turn on notifications so you won't miss our upcoming episodes packed with more cutting-edge insights! 🌟
AIinMinistry #ChurchTechRevolution #YouthMinistry #DigitalTransformation #HybridMinistry
🎥 YOUTUBE
https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
📱SOCIAL
TIKTOK:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
INSTAGRAM:
http://www.instagram.com/hybridministry
🗒️ SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/058
🆓 FREEBIES
FREE Animation Effects for Adobe Premiere Pro:
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
FREE E-Book:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
SHOWNOTES
Water Warz Reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cuh_R6DtuMm/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2F
TIMECODES
00:00-01:59 Intro
01:59-08:46 AI TOOL #1: [OpenAI.com](Openai.com) | ChatGPT
08:46-12:30 AI TOOL #2: Generative AI - Adobe Photoshop Beta
12:30-18:31 AI TOOL #3: Express.Adobe.Com
18:31-24:18 AI TOOL #4: AutoPod.fm | Adobe Premiere Pro Editing Extension
24:18-29:08 What Does AI Mean for the Future of the Church?
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode and addition of the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, I want to give you four different artificial intelligence, also known as AI tools that I think are going to make my life infinitely easier as a church communications, church, social media, and content creator. Moving forward here in 2023 and beyond, I truly believe that we are just at the beginning and just at the precipice of AI and artificial intelligence. And so I want to give you four tools that I think you can use that are not that complicated and that are not that scary. So let's go ahead and let's dive into that today. Hey, if you have not already though, please leave a rating or a review, a like, or a subscribe to our YouTube channel. We are on YouTube, we are on TikTok, we are on Instagram.
(01:02):
Link to all of that in the show notes. And in the show notes, you can find our full and complete transcript for this episode, which is going to be episode number 58 in the link, uh, to the, in the link in the show notes, you'll also find two freebies. We have a freebie four, number one, your, um, free eBooks so that you know how to create a TikTok completely from scratch on your cell phone, no other, uh, devices or things needed. And secondly, if you are using other devices or if you are using a video editing software, i e Adobe Premier Pro, which is what I typically use, we also have a freebie for your, um, motion transitions that you can get 100% for free. Check both of those things out in the show notes. But without any further ado, let's dive in and talk about why and what these four different AI artificial intelligence programs can be.
(01:58):
Let's go. All right, tool number one is open ai.com chat, g p t. This is the one I think that has gotten all the rage here recently. And I just wanna show you, if you are on YouTube, you can go ahead and see this. If not, I'll go ahead and read it for those of you on the podcast. But I literally, I just signed up for this, um, account. So, you know, full disclosure, I haven't been using it a lot. This is not something that I've used at all. But, um, we are in a, a series in my church right now at the time of this recording called Party Starter. And we've been doing short videos. You got to see me edit some of those, um, if you've watched or listened to any of the most recent episodes. But I typed out a prompt that said in chat G p t that said, create a paragraph worth of copy for Cross Creek students' YouTube video about being a party starter.
(02:54):
So that's just generic, right? There's not anything like in particular or any particular video that I was gonna use this for, but here is what it it spit out for me. Are you the life of every gathering, the spark that ignites the fun and the ultimate party starter? Couple emojis. Join us at Cross Creek students where we embrace the art of celebration and revel in the joy of bringing people together, more emojis. Our YouTube video's all about honing your party, starting skills from electrifying dance moves to unforgettable icebreakers. Discover the secrets to turning any event into an unforgettable fiesta and watch the energy soar as you take center stage as the ultimate party catalyst more emojis. Don't miss out on the laughter, the comradery, and the unforgettable memories. Hit that subscribe button and let's unleash the party animal within you to more emojis. Hashtag party starter, hashtag unleash the fun hashtag Cross Creek students.
(03:52):
So if you're on YouTube stream, you can go ahead and see this, but what I think that this can do for church, um, social media people, for church content creators, is I think that it can help give you a starting spot for things like this for copy. This is for copy for YouTube video. I'm sure you could put in prompts for copy for a website. I'm sure you could put in prompts for captions for a short form like TikTok, Instagram reel, YouTube short video, uh, podcast episode descriptions, all sorts of things. And what it's going to do is it's going, I mean, here's the thing that that is, uh, it scares people, but I think it, I, I believe there's not a ton of reason to be scared in the land of like this taking over the world is all this is doing is this is just sourcing the internet and it's using the internet as its research database, so to speak.
(04:49):
And so like these words and some of this like, Hey, hit the subscribe button. Like, they're just getting that because every YouTuber in America is saying hit the subscribe button. Like, this isn't something new or something different. You know what I mean? And so, uh, I don't think that like it has a while. It feels like it has a mind of its own, right? Like really what it's doing is it's just sourcing other places and parts on the internet. And I wouldn't use this exact copy, but what I would do is this is good, right? And I would take it and tweak it and it included things like, you know, this phrase in here, unforgettable fiesta. Like, I would probably not include that, but now I probably will, you know, and there's a million different emojis in here. And again, I wouldn't naturally write that way, but I see a lot of people doing that.
(05:35):
And so maybe that's something that's beneficial and, uh, doesn't hurt me, you know, to include it. And so, uh, I think that this can be a great springboard and starting spot for churches. Now, where I think it can get dangerous is when this is like, this is all that we're doing, right? And there's, there's no more, um, creativity, ingenuity outside the box, and we're just simply copy and pasting. If you do that, wow, it might seem like a easy for you and quick to use tool. The reality is your brand isn't gonna have anything unique about itself anymore, right? Think about it like this is sourcing off the internet. So if you copy and paste this, you're just like everything else out there on the internet and there's nothing unique about you or your brand, and maybe in some cases you don't need that, you like, uniqueness is not necessarily gonna be the goal.
(06:28):
But in other cases, I do think that you want to make sure that you stand out. Why would someone go to your church as opposed to the church next to you or the church down the road if all the churches, you and the church down the road, the next church, the next church, the next church are all just using chat g p t to fill in all of the gaps and all of the blanks. Well, my question to you is like, what is gonna make your church something that they're interested in, attracted to, or, you know, planning on going to in, in the future? And so that's where I think this can operate and start as like a springboard. You know, I've told you I'm a youth pastor and so I use a lot of, um, pre-written content or curriculum, and I use it as my like, original source of study.
(07:12):
So I might, uh, download a curriculum that we either bought off the internet or that we subscribed to or something like that. And I might look at it, I might get the verse from it. I might get the theme from it, I might get the idea from it. I might even have, uh, the original author wrote an illustration and that might jog my memory to create some sort of illustration that that matches in my own life, or one that makes sense. Um, like, oh, they're going this direction. Can I think of a story in my life of something like that that happened? You know what I mean? And so that's a similar thing how I see ai. It's a starting spot. Um, and it could in some cases be an ending spot if it's good enough. And if you get good enough at prompt writing, granted, I just opened this account and so this is my literal first prompt I've ever asked chat g p t about.
(07:59):
So I'm gonna get better. And that's gonna actually, I think, be a skill that is gonna be marketable in the future, is your ability to write prompts and write things with, uh, open AI and chat g p t, um, or other AI systems. But this is just, like I said, this is just the beginning and something that I think can make your life easier as a church content creator. 'cause what we know, and one of the things that we hear a lot, one of the pain points of digital and social is, I don't have the time. Well, these things help reduce some of the friction and some of the barrier to entry that it takes for you to have the time to do some of these things. And it's gonna help wipe away some of that, and it's gonna level that playing field and let you have more time doing what you feel matters most in your career and in your job.
(08:47):
AI resource number two that I think you can be using in your church is generative AI through beta. Now, at the time of this recording, which is Monday, July 17th, Photoshop has released a beta, uh, version of its of its software, um, that if you are an Adobe user, you already have sitting in your Adobe Creative Cloud. If you go into your Adobe Creative Cloud and you look, uh, off to the left, I believe, um, there is a thing that says, uh, beta. Now I can't find it. Oh, there it is. Um, well, that's under create. Now, all apps, um, there's a, oh, right here, beta apps, there is a spot for some, some beta things you can test features and things that are currently under development. And so I downloaded the Photoshop beta, uh, version. And in that, uh, Photoshop beta, they have generative things, which is ai.
(09:50):
And so you can highlight and create a little portion of it. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see this video of me using it for the very first time I created a, a TikTok or a short of it. And these are the results. So for our staff picnic last week, we did a hot seat portion, a hot seat segment. And so, um, all I did was I said, create a background engulfed in flames, and then a seat, I included a seat in it. And so here's a seat right here. If you're watching on YouTube stream, you can see it. And then all I did was I typed in the, the text hot seat right above it. It was also a staff picnic. And so I said, create for me a, um, picnic background, and this is what they created. And then I just dropped our logo right in there on top.
(10:33):
I used, uh, another software called Sidekick that I get from D Y m download Youth ministry. And we had name picker right here. So typically I would put this c in the middle, but since I knew there were gonna be names right here, um, I, I just left that space blank. What happened was they actually ended up using this as the like landing slide for the entire event. So as people were walking in, whatever, and I didn't like it 'cause I was like, that C should be lower, right? I created it for the, the name picker that I was supposed to go right down here, uh, below it. All that to be said. And actually it was funny too, people were like, what is this right here? What is this like thing on the, on the picnic table? And you know what I would tell them?
(11:14):
I was like, I actually don't know. 'cause AI generated this entire graphic. So all that to be said, Adobe Photoshop AI with generative, uh, the gener, the generation, I don't know what they call it, generative fill. Um, that is another hack that I think you can use. I actually also built, um, a banner like, uh, a standup banner for first time guests that says, first time start here. And I built the ba the entire background using Adobe, uh, ai. And what I think is going to, excuse me, what I think is gonna be cool about it is I think that, um, it will take, it will reduce the amount of time I'm using to find backgrounds and other like elemental things. Um, not the Pixar movie, but elements of graphic design that I need in some sort of Photoshop background. So if you are an Adobe Creative Cloud, uh, user, uh, I would, I would a hundred percent recommend you downloading this and checking it out and just adopting it as your primary Adobe Photoshop file right now. Um, and just start playing with it and just start getting used to it and some of the features that go along with it.
(12:31):
Okay, AI thing number three is the new express.adobe.com. So I actually stumbled upon this searching for Adobe Photoshop beta. So if, again, if you're an Adobe subscriber, and if you are, uh, watching this, you can see this on my screen, but over here off to the, the left, I found, uh, just kinda like putzing through some stuff, I found some different categories over here. And under this, uh, under all under these all apps thing, under mobile, I found this thing right here called Adobe Express. And so I click it, um, and it took me to, now granted, right now I'm not able to replicate it or recreate it, um, but it took me to a, just a website and I was like, huh. And so as I played around on here, um, Adobe Express, yeah, hit launch, it took me to this thing right here.
(13:34):
And if, then it takes you to just this website and it's got just sort of like these Canva vibes, right? And so you have Instagram Square Post as a template, you have video as a template presentation, resume flyer, Instagram story, logo, infographic, webpage, and like it has all the elements. You can also start one from scratch. And so like, if you just click on one and you wanna create, say, an Instagram, uh, post from scratch, you can upload, uh, footage from your device or whatever, or you can use some of these free things free included with your Creative Cloud software. Um, so like, let's say I wanted to use right here, this basketball thing, and then you just get in there and you just, you just start creating it, right? You can, um, remove background, you can blend, you can affect, you have adjustments, um, highlights, brightness, contrast, all these things, all of the basic things that you can edit with.
(14:35):
And then at the end of it, uh, you can, you can create a completely, um, free, if you have the thing downloaded, a completely free, um, version of a graphic or a video or an animation or something like that. And so this is something again, and here's what I don't know, I don't know if this is considered AI or not, but it's a new feature. It's an Adobe Beta feature that I discovered that I found out, and then I thought, man, this is actually useful. And so last week at our church, we did a thing called Water Wars. And so if you are watching on the screen, I'll also put the link in the show notes. Um, but if you want to go check it out, you can, um, making myself a note so I don't forget to put it in there. You can go check out what, uh, what, what that thing looks like, what my water wars video that I created, uh, looked like.
(15:30):
And so, uh, it's right here in this folder. And so it's just a basic graphic with a little bit of sound and animation, just a reminder and, uh, you know, something basic, something simple, but something that would've taken me some time to create an Adobe Premier or, uh, completely something from scratch. I'd have to go like maybe to like motion array and download some sort of template, but now through the subscription that I'm already paying for as a church content creator, a church social media manager, through that subscription, I'm already having access to this other protocol and this other, um, thing over here, this other program that they're beginning to create. And so I think they're gunning for things like Canva and some of these other web-based design things. But like I said, you, if you are already a subscriber to it, you already have access to some of these things.
(16:26):
If you do not have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, um, I, I just looked it up, you can get it annualized for about $419 a year. And let me just say that in years past, you are gonna need to hire somebody who had, uh, who had knowledge of this program without generative AI and without express.adobe.com, without some of these things. And you were probably still gonna have to buy for them church, uh, softwares to use. All right? And so now for less than $500 a year in your overall annual operating budget with a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, you can have it for 419 80 $8 a year. I'm not an affiliate, I'm not getting any kickback from this, though. I should, but this will help your church, I believe, reaching out into the next generation and reaching out and doing things in a digital way with, with hybrid ministry.
(17:26):
Now, you may need to hire a person that does know how to use this, or you may be a person on your staff that already knows how to use it. Either way, this is worth the investment. If you ask me. And there are other apps, there are probably cheaper things. But here's the thing, uh, if, if you don't already have, uh, a top of the line software like Final Cut Pro or something like that, I would recommend that you make some sort of investment. I'm an Adobe fan, I'm gonna recommend them, but you should use something and you should use more than just a free, a free version or a, a, you know, thing that you get off the internet, um, using like Canva or some of those things completely for free, because the more free stuff you have, you have to string it all together. And it doesn't always like communicate or talk. Meanwhile, everything under Adobe's umbrella, you saw this with some of my last videos, everything under that umbrella, all works together, talks together and can be created together. So, um, I would, if if you're not already doing that and you're looking for a recommendation, that would be my recommendation to you.
(18:32):
Okay? Item number four. And this one, frankly, might be the one that I'm most excited about. It is called Auto Pod. It is an Adobe Premier Pro. So video editing extension plugin, it's 29 99 a month, spits out to be about 300 bucks a year. And it gives you, um, three different features that I think all three are really, um, useful and really important and really potentially relevant for your social media and hybrid and digital presence. So I'm gonna actually show you all of them. If you're watching, I'll also talk through them. It has three. So it, it falls in, uh, into your extensions section right here. And you'll see there are three different features in it. The first feature is the jump cut editor. So you click that open and what it does is it pops up this little thing. It already has my, my info saved.
(19:32):
And so I tell it the silence cutoff level. I tell it to remove silences longer than, um, however many seconds, and then it will create jump cuts for me. Now granted, what I'm about to show you is this is based off a video with, um, with a backing track on it already. So you know what, that's probably not the best example. Um, but if I put in, like, if I put in the original like source file without the backing track, which is what I'm gonna do, um, I don't wanna do that. Uh, I'm going to get rid of that. Now if I do that, I can, um, do this jump cut editor.
(20:20):
Oh, now it does have some, it does have some funky requirements. Like, like you can't have, um, gaps in your sequence and you can't have your like video overlays. All right? So like, I gotta get rid of all the overlays and all the graphics and all the animations and all the things. Uh, what I did last time was I just highlighted all of them and hit command C or command X actually. So it was cut, so it removed them, I animated the sequence, and then I just dropped them right back in at the same, at the same spot. Um, so if I put all of my sequences together on the same line, if I remove any of the other sound effects or any other things, I just have a standard. If you're watching, I have a standard video line, um, and a standard audio line. So now I'm going to create these jump cuts. All audio tracks must start on frame zero. Audio track three does not start on frame zero. So it's reading, it's seeing this little baby, uh, sound effects. I'm just gonna try and highlight anything, delete 'em, and now try it. There we go. All right, so now if you see it encoded and it, and it, if you're watching it made very small cuts, but you'll be able to go in here now and you'll be able to see some of these jump cuts
Nick Clason (21:43):
Adds value life, someone who starts the party recognizes the increase they have and they use it wisely. So with that in,
Nick Clason (21:53):
So with that in mind, um, that now some of those like zoom in and out, those are mine. I've already done those. Okay. But it made those cuts for me. So I most recently was editing one of these. I can show you that one. This video right here. I dropped everything in and I just asked it for jump cuts, and then I was able to go through and I was able to do my zoom in and zoom out. That's how I do a one camera setup. Um, but give it variety, right? I don't have a, a multicam setup, but I have a one camera setup and I just zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out every so often. And so if you're watching, you'll be able to see this right here. There's that angle, and then I'm in, right? And then as I'm in, I come to the end of this sequence and I boom, zoom right back out.
(22:35):
You see that? And the way I generated those was through Auto pod, through the, the jump cut editor. All right? The other thing that it'll do for you is if I go back over here to this original one, um, you can do a social media clip, uh, thing. And so if I want to take it from right now, it's wide screen, 1920 by 10 80, if I wanna take it to 10 80 by 1920, auto reframe it, give it an end page, offset it and all that stuff, I create this clip. Now look, boom, now it put it in this, the right sequence size, and it reframed it for me. Now, if you go back a couple videos, when I was creating social clips, I was doing that manually, but now Auto Pod, it'll do that for me completely on its own. The third thing that it does that I'm not gonna be able to show you because I don't have a Multicam setup, but if I had a Multicam setup up, um, as really good for podcasting.
(23:31):
And so if I had like maybe a wide camera with two people in it, and then two cameras, one set on each of the people and they each had a audio source, you put all those sources in just on different layers. So layer one is, say me, layer two is my co-host, and then layer three is, uh, a wide, I would do a Multicam editor and it would just clip it all up so that it knows when and who's talking. And it would put, you know, focus on my camera when I'm talking and focus on my co-host camera when they're talking. And then the wide camera every so often, that used to all have to be done manually. And now through ai, through Auto Pod, it's able to sense the, um, audio and like, um, decibel levels on certain audio tracks and make those decisions for you.
(24:19):
All right, so in conclusion, what does this mean? What I think it means is, I think wherever you are in your journey with ai, listen, I get it. There's gonna be a lot of people that are freaked out by it, and it, it can be freaky. But also I hope that through this episode you are able to notice and see that it's helpful and it can be a helpful tool and one that's useful and beneficial and can actually save people time. Here's the reality. I'm a pastor, I'm a youth pastor, and my last year of this job has felt a lot more like a digital content creator than a youth pastor. And so my hope is that some of these tools actually free me up to do some more of my pastoral duties as opposed to sitting behind my computer and learning how to do some of these things manually that I've had to learn over the last year.
(25:10):
And so with the advent of ai, it's gonna make, hopefully my job easier. Now I get it. If your primary and sole responsibility at your church is to be a content creator, you might be fearing for some of your job security because you're like, this is doing some of the elements of my job. And I definitely get that. But what I think, and I heard this on a podcast, I can't remember who, or I would link it. Um, if I find it, I'll link it. But what I, what I remember is they said like, Hey, be the, be on the front edge of this, right? Cut on the front edge of this stuff. And if you're a content creator, start using it and don't be afraid of it, but instead use it so that you are able to be on the front edge wave of this.
(25:53):
And, for example, auto Pod, it's probably only gonna get better Beta Photoshop, it's in its beta version as it releases and launches into its full form, they're going to create more and better features on it. And I wanna be a user so that I know how to use it now so that the learning curve isn't as steep for me, that's just a personal preference. But honestly, I should have dropped this episode six weeks ago or, or two months ago. But here's the reality, I didn't have the bandwidth or the margin. Um, because we had summer camp going on and we had family vacation and some of these other things that I didn't have time to sit down and start playing around with it. It was only up until last week when I had a little more time to open and find Adobe Photoshop Beta and to find this express adobe.com thing, which I didn't even, I didn't even know I was looking for.
(26:43):
Um, and Auto Pod, honestly, I heard that from the Pro Church tool show probably two or three months ago. And I sent myself an email and it's been sitting in my email inbox to explore it. And I didn't have the bandwidth to explore it up here until last week. And so I get it, like the learning curve can be steep, but the quicker you're able to force yourself into that space, if you can give yourself an hour a week to just explore new things and learn new things and not be in creation mode, but be able to find yourself and be in exploration mode, those types of things will help you be able to be innovative and creative and on some of the front edge lines of these things. Not because being first to market is the goal, but because these tools here can help make you more effective as a digital content creator.
(27:31):
And if you're more effective and your church is more effective in this digital strategy, you hopefully are reaching more people with the life saving and eternally perspective. Um, you know, eternally perspective creating reality of salvation that's available to us in Jesus Christ alone. And that is why we do this. We want to reach people with the message and the hope of the gospel of Jesus through our digital and hybrid means. And I want to encourage you to do that 'cause I want you to be effective, not 'cause I want you to be first. Hey guys, so glad that you stuck around to be in the end of this episode. If you're still here, leave us a like, leave us a subscribe, leave us a rating, hit us up on YouTube. Um, examples from this episode are gonna be up on YouTube if you're not already there.
(28:22):
If you are on YouTube and you wanna see the full transcripts, some of these other things, hit the link in the show notes down below in the description. If you're on a podcast and you want to see some of these things, hit the link in the show notes as well and it'll take you over to YouTube, take you to my TikTok, take you to my Instagram, come hang out with me. Let me know you're there. Ask us some questions if you have some, we'd love to do another q and a episode here in the soon to be near future. But don't forget free stuff in my, in my, uh, description as well. As always, don't forget, stay hybrid.
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Hybrid Ministry is complicated and hard. Or is it? How do pastors and youth pastors create a vibrant extension, not replacement, of what's already happening during their weekly church services? To…

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