Ministry At Scale

Josh Kashorek is the Marketing Director at Five Q, a digital marketing agency focused on helping ministries reach more people online. With over 15 years of experience in digital strategy, analytics, and marketing, Josh brings valuable expertise to this topic. 

In this episode, Josh shares insights from Five Q's annual Ministry Benchmark Study, analyzing digital metrics across over 1,000 ministries. Here are some of the key topics covered: 

The Continued Importance of SEO 

Nearly 70% of ministries gained rankings for keywords in Google's top 100 search results this year, up from 50% last year. Josh emphasizes that SEO remains crucial for driving organic traffic, which comprises over half the traffic for many ministries. 

Website Speed Impacts User Engagement 

While ministry websites showed modest improvements in PageSpeed scores, Josh notes there is still plenty of room for optimization – especially on mobile devices. Faster websites lead to better user engagement and reduced bounce rates. 

Social Media Integration Trends 

83% of ministries did not list any social media channels on their websites, choosing instead to drive traffic back to their owned properties. Among those promoting social, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube were the top channels utilized. 

Follower Growth Insights 

The median number of Facebook and Instagram followers grew year-over-year across ministries studied, while Twitter and YouTube follower counts shrank slightly. 

Realistic Posting Frequencies 

Despite advice to post daily, the median number of monthly posts was 16 on Facebook, 13 on Instagram, and lower on Twitter and YouTube – highlighting the content creation challenges many ministries face. 

The full benchmark study is available for free download, and ministries can request a personalized scorecard and strategy consultation from Five Q. 

Listen to the entire Ministry of Skill podcast episode for more valuable digital marketing insights and to learn how you can better evaluate and improve your online impact.

Kedron Rhodes, Director of Digital Experiences at Crowe LLP, has over 25 years of expertise in optimizing customer journeys. In this insightful episode, he shares a powerful framework for enhancing donor relationships through empathetic experiences. Here are some key topics covered: 

Why Cultivating Donor Empathy is Crucial 

Kedron emphasizes the importance of stepping outside your own perspective to truly understand how donors feel at each touchpoint. He provides examples of how changing expectations can create mismatched experiences over time. 

Building an Empathy Map for Your Donor Persona 

Kedron guides listeners through developing a relatable donor persona by mapping out their objectives, frustrations, influences, and behaviors. This lays the groundwork for evaluating the journey through their lens. 

Auditing the Full Donor Journey 

Using the persona, Kedron demonstrates how to document every interaction from initial awareness through consideration, donation, support, and even discontinuation. The goal? Identify pain points where the actual experience falls short of the donor's expectations. 

Prioritizing Seamless Donation Experiences 

Kedron stresses the importance of minimizing friction during the crucial donation process when the donor is at their "aspirational high" and most motivated to give. 

Never Neglecting the Discontinuation Phase 

While often overlooked, Kedron explains why mapping the discontinuation journey is vital for understanding departing donors and preventing negative impressions. 

Through hands-on activities and real-world examples, this episode equips you with a comprehensive journey-mapping approach to continually optimize your donor's experience through an empathetic lens. 

Listen to the full episode for all the insights, templates, and group exercises around this transformative donor-centric methodology.

Josh Kashorek is the Director of Marketing at Five Q, a platform helping organizations leverage no-code tools and automation. His creative mindset and technical skills converge in an insightful perspective on how ministries can steward AI for greater impact. In this thought-provoking episode, Josh shares: 

The Existential Crisis Inspiring His AI Experiments 

Josh opens by recounting the "minor existential crisis" sparked by a report predicting that up to 70% of work activities could be automated by 2030. As someone in marketing/communications, he wondered if his skills were becoming obsolete. This led him to dive into exploring AI capabilities hands-on. 

Overcoming AI Content Creation Challenges 

While tools like ChatGPT can generate passable content, Josh outlines key hurdles like factual inaccuracies, lack of unique voice/opinion, and generic sameness across outputs. His solution: provide contextual guardrails by inputting your ministry's real content to infuse your distinct voice and brand. 

A Replicable Framework for Automating Workflows 

Josh walks through his code-enabled workflow for rapidly generating branded social media visuals with compelling quotes from source material. What manually took 15 minutes was automated in a mind-blowing 3 seconds! He encourages ministries to analyze repeatable tasks for automation potential. 

Embracing Joy over Fear in Kingdom Stewardship 

Drawing inspiration from the Parable of the Talents, Josh challenges listeners to not cower under the "weight of stewardship" amid radical changes like AI. Instead, he cheers embracing your God-given role and responsibility with joy, trusting your ministry is part of God's plan. 

Whether providing a basic AI content creation demo or translating a biblical narrative, Josh casts a vision for faithfully experimenting with these emerging tools. His parting charge? Use AI as a megaphone to amplify your ministry's unique voice and mission, not replace it. 

Don't miss this creative thinker's perspective on facing technological disruption as a "Christitunity" to invest the Master's resources for greater Kingdom impact.

Josh Burnett is the founder of Church.tech, an AI-powered platform helping churches streamline operations and engage people more effectively. Drawing from his background in ministry and entrepreneurship, Josh brings a unique perspective on leveraging technology for greater kingdom impact. In this insightful episode, he shares:

How AI Transcribes, Summarizes and Generates Discussion Content

One of Church.tech's core features is the ability to upload sermon videos and instantly generate transcripts, summaries, discussion questions and more using advanced AI models. Josh walks through a live demo showing how churches can quickly create robust small group materials and content resources from their weekly messages.

The Power of Unified Messaging Across Ministries

Josh describes the vision of enabling churches to develop a synchronized discipleship strategy with unified teaching flowing from the pulpit all the way down to kids' ministry. AI-generated age-appropriate lessons and parent guides ensure families are receiving the same biblical truths packaged for every age level.

Practical Applications for Sermon Illustrations and Visuals

The platform's "Playground" feature allows pastors to interact with the AI by asking it to generate compelling illustrations, social media post ideas, decoration themes and more - all aligned with the main sermon concept. Josh shares how this creative capacity stretches the imaginative potential.

Upcoming AI Innovations on the Roadmap

Looking ahead, Josh previews several groundbreaking products in development at Church.tech including an "ethical AI co-pilot" for augmenting sermon writing, a social media automation tool trained on a church's voice, and workflow features to streamline operations.

Whether exploring the live product demo or dreaming about future AI capabilities, this episode highlights the powerful ways Church.tech is empowering ministries to increase efficiency and impact through intelligent technology.

Don't miss Josh's passion for helping churches spend less time on logistics and more time making disciples! Listen to the full episode for a glimpse of the AI-powered future awaiting the church.

Dave Raley is the founder of Imago Consulting, helping organizations innovate to grow their impact. He draws from over a decade of experience leading a digital team at a major nonprofit agency. Dave is also the author of the Weekly Wave Report on innovation trends and co-host of the Purpose and Profit podcast. In this insightful episode, Dave shares:

Why an "Outside Mindset" is Critical for Innovation

Dave emphasizes the importance of looking beyond your expertise to see problems differently. He shares how his narrow perspective as a fundraiser initially blinded him to insights from the subscription economy that ultimately unlocked innovative recurring giving models.

How the Six "Working Genius" Types Drive Breakthrough Ideas

Drawing from Patrick Lencioni's framework, Dave explains the six distinct genius types needed for innovation - from wonder and invention to galvanizing action and tenacious implementation. Understanding these types can reduce unnecessary judgment and guilt while maximizing your team's collective strengths.

Why Crises Are Catalysts for Transformation

Conventional wisdom says innovation happens in good times. Dave flips the script, arguing that crisis is "the mother of innovation." He challenges listeners to seize current disruptions as "Christitunities" to pioneer solutions.

Leveraging Your Unique Context for Impact

True innovation means operating at the powerful intersection of your God-given identity and circumstances. Dave outlines how pivotal innovators like Martin Luther capitalized on their natural resources and skills within a specific historical context.

This engaging episode provides a rich framework for leading innovation grounded in clear purpose, diverse collaboration, and practical wisdom from the past and present. Don't miss Dave's inspirational charge that you were created to innovate!

Corey Alderin is the founder of Sermon Shots, a platform that helps churches transform their full sermons into popular short-form video content for Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. In this hands-on workshop, Corey shares his expertise on leveraging AI to create thumb-stopping, engaging clips that reach people where they are consuming content. 

Why Vertical Video Content Matters Now More Than Ever 

Corey highlights the seismic shift happening in social media, where follower count doesn't determine who sees your content. The AI algorithms analyze each video's content and match it with the right audience members most likely to engage. This unlocks massive reach potential even for ministries with small followings. 

5 Keys to Creating Viral-Worthy Vertical Clips 

1. Captions - With most viewing on mute, having captions is crucial 

2. Keep It Brief - Shorter videos perform better to sustain engagement 

3. Grab Attention Early - Use a provocative hook in the first 2-5 seconds

4. Leverage Music - Adding the right music can invoke desired emotions

5. Highlight Faces - Close-up shots of faces are proven attention drivers

Walk-Through: Turning a Sermon into Multiple Engaging Clips 

In the live demo, Corey shows exactly how the Sermon Shots platform utilizes AI to streamline the clip creation process: 

1. Upload your long-form video content 

2. Select from pre-built appealing designs and styles 

3. Let the AI suggest top moments or identify them by keyword 

4. Fine-tune clips with text, branding, zooming, music and more 

5. Preview clips on each platform to optimize appearance 

6. Download ready-to-post video clips in a fraction of the normal time 

The Power of AI to Multiply Your Content's Reach

What used to take hours can now be done rapidly thanks to AI capabilities like speech-to-text, facial detection, and identifying engaging moments. This allows ministries to repurpose one sermon into a stream of natively formatted videos perfectly suited for each social platform. 

Corey's innovative approach combines AI's efficiency with human curation to create ultra-engaging content that expands your ministry's reach and impact like never before. For a first-hand look at this game-changing process, listen to Corey's full instructive workshop now!

Arnie Cole is a social scientist and researcher at Back to the Bible, who has studied the spiritual lives of over 1.5 million people over the past 20 years. In this insightful episode, he challenges ministries to truly understand the spiritual state of the people they serve in order to help move them closer to Jesus.

The Importance of Asking "How Are You Doing Spiritually?"

Through examples from his own family's equestrian ministry, Arnie highlights how children are remarkably open about their spiritual struggles, but something happens as they become adults and stop sharing. He argues it is critical for ministries to directly ask people how they are doing spiritually.

Introducing the Personalized Engagement Prioritization Model

Arnie presents a 25-dimensional model that identifies 17 trillion potential spiritual data points for where a person could be in their walk. The methodology includes:

1. The "Death Question" to assess their salvation

2. Their level of Bible engagement, which predicts spiritual trajectory

3. Prioritizing people into 4 categories: Need for Evangelism, Discipleship, Activation, or Mature Believer

Measuring Spiritual Transformation and Discipleship Impact

The critical metric is whether people are engaging the Bible regularly, which research shows leads to transformed lives. Arnie also emphasizes the need to measure if people are actively discipling others.

Addressing the "Hard Issues" People Face

The model accounts for the real spiritual struggles people face like anger, anxiety, pornography use, gender identity issues, and more. Arnie laments that many ministries are unwilling to even ask about these "hard" areas people need help with.

A Free Resource to Increase Ministry Effectiveness

Arnie's team offers ministries a free scientific study and impact assessment to truly understand the spiritual state of the people they serve. The goal is to equip ministries to more effectively help people find and follow Jesus.

This is a powerful framework for personalizing ministry engagement in a way that leads to real spiritual transformation. To learn more about implementing this model, be sure to listen to Arnie's full engaging and eye-opening presentation!

Andrew Rogers is the co-founder of BibleChat.ai, an innovative app that uses AI to help people engage more deeply with the Bible. With over 75,000 downloads and users in 188 countries, BibleChat has been pioneering the use of artificial intelligence for Christian ministry. In this insightful episode, Andrew shares:

The Alarming Decline of Biblical Literacy

Andrew highlights shocking statistics like 26 million Americans stopping Bible reading since COVID and only a third being able to name the four gospel books. This Biblical illiteracy crisis represents both a huge problem and massive opportunity.

Introducing Faith Assistant - AI for Ministries

To tackle this issue, Andrew introduced Faith Assistant - BibleChat's new product that brings AI capabilities to churches, ministries and Christian media. It understands each organization's unique teachings to provide personalized, spiritually enriching experiences.

Surfacing Your Ministry's Content with AI

By indexing sermon libraries, ebooks, articles and more, Faith Assistant surfaces the perfect content to answer user questions and needs. It remembers context, provides summaries, and can even auto-generate customized Bible studies.

Real Examples from Partners Like KCBI Radio

Andrew showcased powerful use cases from partners like KCBI radio, Concordia Lutheran Church, and Pastor Richard Ellis. From Finding relevant sermons to answering theological questions in a denominationally appropriate way, the applications are endless.

Shaping AI to Spread the Gospel

Andrew's passion shines through as he describes this innovative approach to shaping AI technology to increase biblical engagement and ultimately further the Great Commission in powerful new ways.

This episode is packed with insights, real-world examples, and an inspiring vision for how AI can be leveraged for kingdom impact. To hear Andrew's full presentation and vision, be sure to listen to the entire Ministry of Scale podcast!

Jeff Kliewer is the founder of ViewSpark. He has worked in fundraising for over 30 years and brings much experience to this episode. Jeff has taken his experience with fundraising and, through ViewSpark, has put a powerful way to connect with your donors right at your fingertips. In this episode, Jeff shares a variety of topics, including:

Why Customer Feedback is Critical for Innovation

Jeff shares how ViewSpark customers started using the product in ways he had never imagined and how those experiences have helped shape their product development.

How Real-time Information Matters

It is one thing to tell your donors what their funds are doing to make the world a better place. It is an entirely different thing to show them firsthand. Jeff shares stories about rescue missions in Maui using ViewSpark to give real-time impact updates.

Showing Impact Means Being Authentic

Ministry work can be messy, yet we often feel like everything we produce must be polished and shiny. But donors want to see the impact they are having firsthand. Jeff shares a story of how one customer shared a video during a massive snowstorm about the need to help their homeless neighbors living in that very storm. Simple and real wins over polished messaging every time. 

Why Video and Text is a Winning Combination

As a digital communicator, you know how hard it is to get your message seen and heard. Jeff shares tremendous response rates made possible by the video and text message combination. He also shares why these rates get amplified when you send the content your recipients have been waiting to watch.

This episode is full of powerful stories and practical tips on how to better serve your donors with authentic, timely video updates from the field.

During this talk given at the Digital Ministry Conference in 2022, Aly Hammond & Chip Johnston from Virtuous provide 8 responsive mindsets that ministries and organizations can utilize to solve some of the big problems that many non profits are facing today.

Personal For All

How do we treat all donors the way we treat major donors? This doesn’t mean you’ll have the capacity to take all your donors to dinner, but it does mean you can send every donor a personal thank you email, call and text. If you have hundreds of thousands of people in your database of donors, you can followup with all your donors in a highly personalized way based on what they’ve done.

Innovate, Experiment and Embrace Failure

It’s important to try new things and get really comfortable with failing.

Focus on Trust

Relationships thrive on trust and accountability. Donors have rightful expectations that whoever they’re donating to will do what they say they will do. Jennifer McCrea from the Generosity Network puts it like this:

“Resources will tend to flow naturally towards you when you focus on the most important aspect of the fundraising process: creating human connections”. Donors tend to continue giving when they feel connected with and have confidence in the organization they are involved with.

Value Motivational Insights Over Behavior

It’s incredibly important to understand somebody’s intent. What’s their connection? Why are they giving? What’s their motivation for giving? The first thing to find out is “why”. Listen so you can understand the intentions of your donors so you can serve them in the most effective way possible.

Breaking Down Silos

Combining your people, platforms and processes to work in harmony together will help build deep, authentic donor relationships at scale.

Be Abundantly Thankful

Generosity breeds generosity. Don’t lose sight of the sacrifice that your donors are making with their time and money. Rather than treating donors like an ATM, lead with gratitude and provide highly personal and meaningful experiences.

Design Plans, Adapt, Stay Curious

Write out your plans in pencil. Be willing to fail and learn from your failures. “Some organizations will thrive from this increased chaos, some will be unprepared and some will merely fight it and lose.” as Seth Godin put it.

View Generosity Beyond the Transaction

There are often so many transactions, it’s hard to see beyond it. Ask questions like:

What was the mindset behind that donation?

Why did it take place?

Take steps to focus on personalization in order to best serve donors based on who they are as a whole.

To listen to the entire talk, listen to episode #74 of the Ministry at Scale Podcast.