REACHRIGHT Podcast

In today’s episode, we discuss six ways to build a unified church in a divided world. 

As the contentious 2020 US election season comes to a close, the Church has the opportunity to be a model of unity. 

But, many churches are just as divided as the rest of the country.

Join us as we put together the dots on how your church can become a place that truly brings people together. 

We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow. 

1. Talk about it. 
2. Don’t choose sides. 
3. Bring an Eternal perspective. 
4. Pray for all leaders equally.
5. Don’t answer every question publicly.
6. Intentionally Target diversity of Thought. 

In today’s episode, we unpack the reasons why most churches in the United States are not growing.

To put it plainly, if your church isn’t growing, you have either a front door or a back door problem.

Knowing which one you are facing is the first step in changing the tide.

Join us as we discuss some of the action steps your church can take to reach more people and grow.

Front Door Problem – Your number of local visitors annually is less than your average weekly attendance. 

Easy Wins:

• Look at your website Calls To Actions
• Use the Google Grant
• Ask People to Review You Online

Back Door Problem – Fewer than 10% of your visitors are assimilated into the church’s life. 

Easy Wins:

• Consider Pre-registering Visitors
• Build an Email Sequence
• Give Visitors One Clear Onramp

Thomas Costello –  00:00:00    In today’s episode, we unpack the reasons why most churches in the United States are not growing to put it plainly. If your church isn’t growing, you either have a front door or a back door problem. Knowing which one you are facing is the first step in changing the tide. Join us as we discuss some of the action steps your church can take to reach more people.  

You’re listening to the reach, right podcast, the show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello, and with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We’re here to help your church see more visitors and grow. Hey guys,  

Thomas Costello –  00:00:58    Welcome to the REACHRIGHT podcast. Episode number 17. I am your host Thomas Costello as always. My cohost is with me today and he is in Hyatt. Hello, Thomas, and hello, our audience. Hey, Hey, and Hey audience. Welcome you guys. We’ve got a good conversation. We’re going to be having today.  here’s the topic it is. Does your church have a front door problem or a backdoor problem?  our belief is that almost all churches probably have one or the other, or you have room for improvement or in one of the other.  and I think it’s a really important conversation for us to have, and we want to give some churches some solutions on how they can do some quick wins if they have a front door or a back door problem. Um, let’s,  let’s start by guests by defining that a little bit.  

Thomas Costello –  00:01:46    What, what do you think,  what is a front door problem? What do we mean by when we, when we say that getting people into the church doors, or if you’re not meeting in this lovely pandemic season, getting them engaged online and first time visitors attracting first time visitors in some form. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And we have some technical details on how we’ll define that and how you can measure if you have a front door problem and a backdoor problem. But yeah, so that’s, that’s a front door is that you just can’t get people to show up or enough people. And if you don’t get people showing up, there’s no way to grow your church. It just doesn’t happen if new people don’t come. That was one of the most profound things. I remember when I was in a church planters intensive,  the guy got up there on the stage and like he basically, his whole point was, if you don’t see visitors, your church won’t grow.  

Thomas Costello –  00:02:38    And it was, it was so profound to me and it’s like, well, that makes so much sense. But like nobody really said it so plainly before. So it literally, it had an impact on me and changed the way we planted a church. I think when I heard that. So, um, backdoor as much like it is,  it’s you have a problem, not so much with getting people there, but you have a problem with keeping them around.  so,  that people don’t stick, they don’t get assimilated into the life of the church. They don’t go from a visitor into a fully committed member within the church. And a lot of churches have that issue too. Um, which would you say is more, if you had to guess this is, I don’t have data on this cause it’s a arbitrary to some people, but what would you just say is a more common problem for churches  

Ian Hyatt –     00:03:18    And, you know, that’s a good question. I would think what I hear more of on, on the front lines of serving as many churches as we have over the years. Um, I think it’s reaching more visitors, um, you know, that comes to mind, but I, but I also think that more churches while they, they don’t have the backdoor problem as much because they’re not reaching as many first time sinners, but they would have it equally. I think so.  

Thomas Costello –  00:03:42    Yeah. I really, you can’t have a backdoor problem if there’s nobody coming in the front door because they have to get into the door somehow first. So if they’re not inside, it’s tough to measure that. But yeah, I would say too, that most of the churches that we meet are struggling to see people walk in their doors or watch them online or connects to the first time with the church.  and, um, but I think both problems are really a challenge for churches. So, um, and here’s, here’s why we know this. Let’s see, I guess we’ll share a few stats with people about why we know this is an issue now you and I have been in this industry. And I know that for a long time, I, at least I said this, maybe you did too, that we used to say the numbers were off the charts, like 80 to 90% of churches are either a stagnant or declining in attendance. Maybe our audience has heard that to let us know in the comments, if you’ve, if you’ve heard that kind of thinking, um, I can’t seem to find a source that verifies that. And most of the current sources, they put that number at about 60 to 65%. So,  here’s the encouraging. Yeah, I guess so at least 65% of us are stagnant or declining, so that’s good, but  

Ian Hyatt –     00:04:52    Quite encouraging, but better than 85 to 90% or so.  

Thomas Costello –  00:04:55    That’s exactly right. Yeah. So Tom Rayner, he’s over at church answers, they found it with a study of a thousand Southern Baptist churches,  that 65% of them are plateaued or declining.  according to Lifeway research, they say it’s about 61% of churches are stagnant or declining. So great news. That’s that’s that’s that’s no, but really. So the go ahead. I’m sorry.  

Ian Hyatt –     00:05:18    Well, I was just gonna say even, you know, everyone’s up, up and for more depressing news in 2020, so yeah. Let’s just give him some more  

Thomas Costello –  00:05:24    Exactly it. Yeah. I think it is,  telling that we have been in this pattern for a long time, and this is, we used to share these stats a Dover a decade ago, but I’d say for the last 20 years or so, it’s been obvious that more churches than not are in some kind of a stagnation or decline. And I think that,  really in, in our view, there are really only two reasons for that. And you can boil all those reasons down to these two things is that your church either has a front door problem or your church has backdoor problem. So either you’re not seeing enough visitors or those visitors that you’re seeing, you’re unable to keep them sticking. And there are all kinds of reasons for this. And so what we want to do today is unpack some of those reasons. But,  first I guess I want to, I want to tackle some of the metrics that we would recommend churches use to assess whether or not they have a front door or a back door problem, or if they have both.  

Thomas Costello –  00:06:22     so for the front door, here’s the one that I use and I...

In today’s episode, we unpack the top 15 metrics that churches should measure in 2020.  

Rick Warren has famously said that you can only manage what you measure. 

For churches that want to adapt to the new digital world we live in, we must measure the right things. 

We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow.

1. Service Attendance
2. Salvations
3. Baptisms
4. Online Traffic
5. Time on Site
6. Online Views
7. Social Shares
8. Video Subscriptions
9. Organic Likes
10. Newsletter Subscriptions
11. Group Attendance
12. Connection Cards
13. Membership Participation
14. Giving per Person
15. Community Service Engagement

 Thomas Costello 00:00:00    In today’s episode, we unpack the top 15 metrics. Churches should measure in 2020, Rick Warren famously said that you could only manage what you measure for churches that want to adapt to the new digital world that we live in. We must measure the right things. We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow.  

 You’re listening to the REACHRIGHT podcast. The show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We’re here to help you your church. See more visitors and grow. Hey guys,  

 Thomas Costello 00:00:59    Welcome to the REACHRIGHT podcast episode number 16, I am your host Thomas Costello. And my co-host as always with me today. Is, is he in high ed? Hey Thomas. And hello all. And man, 16 episodes, huh? 16 deep. What was only a glimmer in our eye when we started as the fun, doing 16 of these so far and got a good topic today, we’ll be talking about 15 metrics that churches should measure in 2020. Um, I think this is an important one because,   I don’t know if you know this, but a lot of stuff has changed in 2020 as it really interesting here. So I’ve been under a rock the whole time. I thought I just saw these people in masks outside. I don’t know what’s what’s going on, how long it is not, it’s only,   you know, it’s about a week from now nuts.  

 Thomas Costello 00:01:46    Yeah, but it’s,   I think what’s happened though, is that a lot of these changes were things that were in the cards already,   for churches, things that were coming down the pike, but 2020 just basically forced our hand. And especially with these things about what churches measure,   I think that there were as a lot of people that were really thinking about what we should be measuring as churches.   and I think a lot of that has changed for,   for churches and I think 2020 and the pandemic and those things that really kind of forced us to, to move on some of these measurement changes. Yeah, indeed it did. And I think that’s, you know, we’re always in this crazy year,   I don’t know about you, but I’m always trying to look at the bright side of, okay, what positive, positive things as 2020 drawn out.  

 Thomas Costello 00:02:29    And I think it’s that it’s forced a lot of churches to, to start looking deeper and measuring things more. And so that’s a good thing. Now let’s just get this out of the way. Um, I am a big believer in measuring things. Anything I can measure. I think that’s one of the big innovations I think that churches have picked up on over the last couple of decades is there’s been a movement towards measuring. I remember first encountering this concept when I read Rick Warren’s purpose driven church,   and the talked about how you can only manage what you measure.   and I think it’s just really important that we measure things, but I think this conversation’s important today because the things that we measure they need to have changed. Now, I think we still do measure some of the old things. We’ll talk about some of those, but the things that we do measure, like what used to be the end all be all was church attendance of butts in seats.  

 Thomas Costello 00:03:24    That was the main thing that we measure.   and that has, um, while still important. We’ll talk about that probably first year, but what’s still important. It has changed somewhat, I think, and being the chief thing that we measure. And so we have a list of 15 different things that we really think that churches should be looking at here in 20, 20 and beyond. And,   so yeah, why don’t I kick us off if that’s okay with you? Cool. All right. So the first one is service attendance. That is something that is the oldest and truest,   membership,   or kind of number that we measure,   different from membership. But it’s the attendance number. I think it’s important to measure because Jesus clearly measured it so many times in scripture. It talks about the number of people that were there,   and it talks about that thing. So I think it’s still an important thing that we remembered now, that being said, it is losing its significance as the chief metric that we measure because 2020 prove to us that showing up is more challenging than it’s ever been before now,  

Ian Hyatt  00:04:20    Right? Yeah. Yeah. It has been. Yeah. And I think that we’ve talked about this in past episodes here is that, you know, engagement is kind of the new thing.   and, and, and that is kind of, if you’re keeping people engaged, they’re attending to a certain degree, whether or not that’s online or physically showing up for things and also doing things online, but it still is very important. I think if you’re a church that’s reopened during this time, and even if you’re like have a limited number that you’re allowing in, or that are allowed in, um, to measure how many people are physically coming, even if it’s not as much as before the pandemic, it’s still very important.  

 Thomas Costello 00:04:59    And we’re seeing a lot of that change too. Right? So we’re seeing churches that have reopened. I have yet to meet one that says that their attendance is back up to where it was, right pandemic, just because it’s really hard. And so I think the challenge with measuring service attendance is that it’s going to leave you pretty depressed right now, if you’re just comparing where we were in March or in February with where we are here in October of 2020,   every single church of the country is about half the size that it used to be. Now, I I’m part of a church here in Hawaii. We haven’t opened yet.   I know a lot of our audience has opened a lot of, it’s still a lot of us still haven’t.   but there isn’t really any sign of us open it again any time soon, honestly, because we’re waiting,   as so many churches in Hawaii meet in schools, we’re waiting for an approval from the board of education. And so there’s all kinds of steps. So if we’re measuring only service attendance, we’re going to leave ourselves pretty depressed. I talked to a lot of depressed pastors right now because that’s what they’re used to measuring. And there’s a certain,   encouragement that comes with seeing a full room. And that’s just different. So,   I think we, we mentioned number one, as it’s still important to measure it, but maybe back off a little bit in the emphasis you put on service attendance, but why don’t you tackle number two?  

Ian Hyatt  00:06:11    Yeah. Agreed. Number two, my, it might be the most important thing. It is the most important thing to the, to the Lord and it shouldn’t be t...

In today’s episode, we discuss the coming bi-vocational ministry revolution.

Evidence is piling up, showing that more and more pastors are finding work outside of the church to supplement their income.

Scripture teaches us that many leaders in the early church did the same thing.

Join us as we unpack five reasons why being bi-vocational can be a healthy choice for many churches and the pastors that lead them.

We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow.

1. Bi-vocational ministry can free pastors from financial stress.
2. Bi-vocational ministry requires that pastors build strong teams.
3. Bi-vocational ministry allows pastors to better relate to their members. 
4. Bi-vocational ministry frees up money to invest in other areas.
5. Bi-vocational ministry helps pastors learn skills they do not learn in their theological studies.

 Thomas Costello:    00:00:00    In today’s episode, we discussed the coming by vocational ministry revolution. Evidence is piling up showing that more and more pastors are finding work outside of the church to supplement their income. Scripture teaches us that many leaders in the early church did the same thing. Join us as we unpack five reasons why being by vocational can be a healthy choice for many churches and the pastors that lead them. We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people.  

You’re listening to the reach, right podcast, the show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello, and with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We’re here to help your church see more visitors  and grow.

 Thomas Costello:    00:01:08    Welcome to the REACHRIGHT podcast. Episode number 15, 15 episodes into our podcast here. I’m your host Thomas Costello and my cohost today as always is Ian Hyatt. Hey guys. Hey Thomas. Hey Ian. Thanks for joining me again today. Looking forward to our conversation here, we have a good one. I think today we’re tackling the Bible vocational ministry or revolution, and five reasons why churches should embrace it.   we have seen a lot of evidence. It seems like that churches are moving more and more to buy vocational models and pastors are moving more and more to five vocational models.   so I think it’s a good conversation for us to have. And,   I see it as a net positive.   personally, I think some people are kind of afraid of it, but I think it can be good for us. So are you hearing a lot of that from,   pastors and people you’re talking to?  

 Thomas Costello:    00:02:02    Oh yeah. And you know, we’ve been hearing this for years, but I think even more so,   in the last, you know, I’d say year and a half or so I th I think we’ve seen a big increase year and a half, two years and,   Oh yeah. And I think you’re, you’re you’re right. I think that it should be looked at in a positive light. I do think a little while back years past, you know, it was looked at as, Oh my gosh, if you’re by vocational, that’s bad or it’s just going to be a struggle or something. And I, I think we’re starting to see that,   the exact opposite is actually more of the reality. Yeah. I mean, so I say this from experience, um, I, and I know you too, we both kind of served in by vocational capacities. I, I led a church as a Bible pastor for, um,   basically all of my ministry career.  

 Thomas Costello:    00:02:49    I’ve been a fuss. I don’t know how many years now, 17 years in ministry. And every one of them has been in a Bible vocational capacity.   and I know that, so a couple of things I’ll say is that for me,   I have had opportunities to not be by vocational. And that was originally at a time. That was kind of my goal is that,   I, I, the last church that I pastored at Madison, Wisconsin, I took it,   it was small and I needed to be by vocational when we started there and my goal among many other things of reaching people for Jesus. But one of my just personal family goals was to grow the church to a place where they could afford a full time pastor and praise God that happened. But I never went full time. I guess I was full time, but I never, I never left my other job in that season there, even though the church could afford to pay me as a full time vocational minister there.  

 Thomas Costello:    00:03:44    And it really was kind of a shift in my thinking from a Bible locational by necessity to a, by vocational, by choice, kind of an approach to ministry. And it did really well for me. And I think there’s a lot to be gained from pastors. I think more and more church leaders are finally getting this here.   and I will say this too, that there was a time where I think these conversations were, were met with, with a little bit of a hostility. A lot of times I’ve heard people talk about this coming revolution, and they’re talking about it in the need to, to move away from vocational ministry. They’ll point to the fact that in scripture, there’s not a lot of evidence that there’s some evidence, certainly that people were paid the workers weren’t their wages. I know that scripture, we see that ministers were paid for what they do, nothing wrong with that, but it seems like most of the people that were in ministry and scripture were people that were having other jobs. We certainly see that in there’s some key people. I mean, you can kind of tackle some of the evidence of that.  

Ian Hyatt:    00:04:42    Yeah. And absolutely. I mean, you know, everyone thinks of Paul first, right. In his tent making obviously, and we use that term, you know, it’s funny as I’ve consulted with pastors over the years, they, they say, when they say they’re by vocational all either say, okay, yeah, what’s your, what’s your tent making? What do you do other than being a pastor? Or they say, that’s my tent making is that I’m in an insurance or whatever. That’s my tent maker, but also equivalent Priscilla’s work as leather crafters while planting churches. And so that’s, that’s, those are a couple other names we maybe don’t think of as much, but yeah, it’s, this has been around since biblical times, and it’s definitely a reality. And it’s funny, you reminded me actually of a conversation when you said that your goal initially was to, you know, not be by, by vocational.  

Ian Hyatt:    00:05:31    I remember when you and I, because we’ve shared this on the podcast before you and I started a church together, you planted the church, I joined you after it, of course. And was your associate pastor. And I remember we had these, these big dreams and we were said, you know, I bet we can quickly grow this to like 300, you know, we get up to 300 and both of us will be full time. And then, you know, and then we talked about my wife coming on and full time as treasurer. And it’s a funny, and now look where we are somewhere totally different and valuing being by vocational. So, yeah, it’s pretty interesting. That’s funny though.  

 Thomas Costello:    00:06:06    Sounds like something I would say back then,  

Ian Hyatt:    00:06:09    It was more of a dream to me, I guess, but no, I’m kidding, but no, we did. We did have that talk, but yeah, I hadn’t even thought of that for years. So it just came to mind. So,  

 Thomas Costello:    00:06:18    So I think what, what I would share though, is that ...

In today’s episode, we unpack nine visitor follow-up hacks that will help your church grow.

Healthy churches know that every visitor is a gift from the Lord, but many churches do not have a well-designed follow-up process that helps turn visitors into fully committed members.

Nailing that process down is one of the most important things that leaders can do to help their churches thrive.

We hope this conversation helps you reach more people the right way.

1. Incentivize Visitor Information
2. Formalize Your Process
3. Build An Email Sequence
4. Use Text Messages
5. Make A Phone Call
6. Follow Up Before They Show Up
7. Have One Clear Onramp
8. Make It Personal
9. Verify The Process

Thomas Costello    00:00:00    In today’s episode, we unpack nine visitor followup packs that will help your church grow healthy churches know that every visitor is a gift from the Lord, but many churches do not have a well-designed follow up process that helps turn visitors into fully committed members. And nailing that process down is one of the most important things that leaders can do to help their churches thrive. We hope this conversation helps you reach people the right way.  

Thomas Costello    00:01:04    Welcome to the REACHRIGHT podcast episode number 14, I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost in higher Hyatt. Hey, how’s it going? Thomas Cohen, goodie. And looking forward to our conversation today, we got a fun one. We’re talking about the nine church visitor followup packs to help grow your church. I think this is something that’s really important for churches to hone in on all the time, not just in the pandemic season. I know a lot of our content has been pandemic related, but this is a, this is some secret sauce I think for churches in all seasons is getting this stuff. Right. So I think people are just excited to hear something for all seasons, not just pandemic season. I know we are normal. We can get on these things the better. So, yeah, that’s exactly right. So, um, yeah, I, I know for people ask me sometimes about,  my ministry background and,  how things went in the last church that I pastored.  

Thomas Costello    00:02:01    I pastored a church in Madison, Wisconsin, and we saw pretty tremendous growth there. And they asked kind of what, what we felt like we did well to see that happen. And I was just telling someone the other day, um, you know, I think we did a few things right on the marketing side. Obviously the teaching was world-class at the church that I was pastoring, but now when I came up there and exploded after that, it was, it was monumental growth. But if I felt like we did anything really right. To help the church, not just see lots of visitors. Cause I think we did a good job with that, but to see people stick, it was really honing in on our visitor followup processes, the church and in my experience, and you can probably testify this too, is that a lot of churches neglect this?  

Thomas Costello    00:02:49    Like they, this is something that I think we hear the most when we’re talking to our clients, they’ll tell us about, um, just what some of their strategies and things, and then we’ll ask them as we’re going, maybe a website strategy call what their followup process looks like. And how many times do we hear? Like, you know, that’s something we’re still kind of ironing out. Yeah. It’s a work in progress with that stuff. And so I think we’ve just honed a really good list of some ways that churches can hack that, to make it something more effective. And the goal of this is to take visitors just doesn’t make visitors, but I think it could take the visitors that you’re getting and make them stickier. That’s the goal behind these things is it turns visitors that come, which are precious already. It turns them into people that are more likely to stick around at your church.  

Thomas Costello    00:03:33     Nelson Searcy,  he played a big part in some of the things that I think about this now. I, what kind of follow some of his systems when I was younger in ministry. And he says, it’s important that we think of every visitor as if they were a gift from God themselves, that visitors don’t just come to the door and they truly are gifts and how we steward them in these kinds of processes and systems and how we do follow up. I think it really is vital. So good conversation I think for us to have. So let me kick us off the first one. And I arguably the most important, and I think some churches missed this, but you have to incentivize visitor information. You have to incentivize give people a reason to give you their information. So you can start off this visitor followup process and churches have known this forever ever since I’ve been a part of a church when I was a kid, we always would ask visitors to fill out some kind of a form. Um, back in the day, you remember how we used to churches were much more open to embarrassing visitors back in the day, right? And you remember that,  

Ian Hyatt    00:04:39    I bet of that embarrassment. You just reminded me. I, one time was visiting and we were in between churches in a season praying for our next church and visiting churches. And I remembered it was actually a fairly large church. When I say large, it was not small. It was probably about 300, 350 people. And, and  and at the very end of it, the pastor just called me up to the very front and,  gave me a hug in front of the car, the whole congregation. It was a bit awkward.  

Thomas Costello    00:05:06    Good luck on your first you’re  

Ian Hyatt    00:05:08    First visit. Yeah. First Sunday visit and you know, front of 350 people gives me a hug. Thank you. But I don’t know you yet.  

Thomas Costello    00:05:17    I’ll remember the first time when you and I went to a church together when we were visiting a church and we got called out in a prophetic word, not us directly, but the quality of our wives I remember is what they said, who were with us at the time, but a prophetic word about the quality of wife we’d had so humorous and that he also, I think, prophesied a keyboard anointing on me, I think is what he said.  

Ian Hyatt    00:05:41    We keep voting, he meant podcast. It just got messed up a little.  

Thomas Costello    00:05:44    Yeah. So it probably did. So anyway, a bit of a diversion, but we used to really make visitors stick out like a sore thumb. And we want to advise against that now, but you still need to find a way to capture people’s information. So the days of having all your visitors stand up here in Hawaii, what a lot of churches used to do is they would give visitors lays,  so that they would, you know, it was kind of a symbol of honor. And I get what they’re doing behind that. It is beautiful to receive a Lei, but then you’re there for the first time and you’re wearing this giant floral thing around your neck. And so you stick out to everybody and everybody knows you’re there for the first time. And I think most visitors don’t want that, but, and honestly, most visitors don’t want to give away their information.  

Thomas Costello    00:06:27    If we’re being really honest about this is I am very protective of that personally. I know when I’m surfing the web or if I go anywhere, I don’t...

In today’s episode, we tackle the question that so many pastors need to ask. – Can I tweet that? 

As the use of social media has increased, so has its ability to get church leaders into hot water.

To help you navigate these challenging times, we discuss five specific ways your church can steer clear of the minefield that is social media this year. 

We hope it helps you reach people the right way. 

1. Delete anything that takes you off message.
2. Treat all posts as content that will be online permanently.
3. Be careful what you retweet and like.
4. Carefully address comments outside of your control. 
5. Work to establish a strong social media presence. 

Welcome to the REACHRIGHT Podcast episode number 13, lucky number 13. I’m your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt.  Looking forward to our conversation here today. Our topic should be a challenging one. I would say maybe a it’s kind of a crazy time that we’re living through it is can we tweak that? How to use social media in a divided election year? I think this is so important for churches to tackle because,  give a little context if you’re listening to this late, the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden that happened this week on Tuesday, we’re recording it on Thursday, October 1st, a couple days ago, we had that debate and it was a, yeah, you can say a lot of things. Yeah. We could say.

Speaker 0 00:01:55 And, for churches, a lot of times I find that it’s best to not say a lot of things about this kind of stuff there, but you know, even not saying something in our divided, crazy time we’re in, that could be explosive. Have you found that I’ve found that yes. Silence, this sin of silence, I guess, is how some people look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. So if you, I guess it comes from the idea that those that are silent when injustice is happening are just as guilty of though as those that, that are, actively doing injustice, I guess, is the thought behind it.  I don’t, I don’t know that I buy into that. I think scripturally, um, I am a firm believer that being slow to speak and quick to listen. I think that’s something that is still valuable and it didn’t go away because of social media.

Speaker 0 00:02:45 But we want to give, I think pastors today, some ideas on how to manage this because social media is an absolute minefield, trying to try to deal with this, these kinds of conversations that, that are happening. And I don’t care what kind of church you are. I would assure you that almost every church in our country, there are people that if you come out to one way or another, in anything political, there are people that will be offended at least, and probably stopped coming and not be a part of your church and speak poorly of your church, just because of what your political beliefs as a leader in that church might be. So it really is a crazy time.

Speaker 2 00:03:26 It is, it is a crazy time. Yeah. And, it, that is, yeah, that is what you could say. Yeah.

Speaker 0 00:03:33 So what we have is we have five different items that we put together of pieces of advice we would have for churches on how to, how to navigate this minefield of social media in an election season. Every election year, it’s a little bit challenging, but this one, I, I am not currently pastoring a church. I pastored one in the last election cycle. And it was tough then I can’t even imagine now, you know, it’s, the political politicization of, the coronavirus and everything that’s happening there. And, it’s just, it’s a, it is a tough thing. So we have five different things that we’ve kind of put together here. We wanted to share with our viewers and listeners, to kind of give them some ideas on how to manage that. But I wanted to set the tone with what the stakes are. I just know that, there is a lot riding on this. There are, there are people that will literally break off relationship with us nowadays, if we don’t share their political beliefs. And so how do you, how do you think you manage something like that? I mean, I don’t know if you have any just general, um, general thoughts on that even before we get into the five, you have any, anything to share about that?

Speaker 2 00:04:40 Yes. You know, I, I think what I can share is that, yeah, it’s very hard to manage because I’m, I’m someone who’s on social media, but I’m, I don’t get political on social media. I choose not to. I don’t have personally, I don’t feel like I have the time to manage all of the comments and it’s like a full time job if you post something political. And I noticed the people that are the most political, I don’t know what they, if they work for a living or, you know, cause it’s a full time job managing that. So, yeah, I, I think, as, as someone, my wife and I both, who don’t, we choose not to get political, we’ve all been we’ve recently, even after the debate, you know, kind of ran into just because we, shared something encouraging. There was not political at all, but it was during this time, whenever one’s emotions were peaked after the debate and because it was an encouragement for all people, it still came off to some, as we were siding with one, one party. So,   and it’s already caused a strain on a couple of relationships, which I think is just so unfortunate, you know, and you know, where are the days where you just called someone and you talked about an issue.

Speaker 0 00:05:59 I do that when you can insult them in front of a thousand of their closest friends. Right. So that’s perfect. Several birds with one stone, I guess. Exactly. That’s exactly right. So, well, let’s not hold back that we’ll get into the five here. The first one is that, we believe that it is wise counsel for churches to delete any social comments that take you off message when you can do that. And so let me explain what we mean by that is that on social media platforms, if you have any kind of a presence, at some point, you will have people that comment or say things that are not in alignment with the church’s position and for the most part, I think it is a good idea to delete that to when you can. And let me give you an example. So for, for us as an organization, at reach right here, we are a Christian, unabashedly Christian, led by pastors and we help churches.

Speaker 0 00:06:55 And that’s what we do. and we offer services that help churches do websites have been one of the big ones we do now is, helping them with the Google grant. And we do a lot of things on social media, promoting our services, where we help churches spend that $10,000 a month that Google gives to churches. And so we help them spend that. But I gotta tell you every single day on our social media posts, we get several people that comment on there about how evil Google is and how nobody I had one the other day that was hilarious. They said, I would rather cut off my hand with a butter knife than take money from Google is what they put on there. So humorous and listen, I’m not trying to defend, it’s not my job to defend Google or their positions. There’s all kinds of things that I I’m sure that as an organization that we would, we obviously do very differently than how they run things.

Speaker 0 00:07:48 So that’s not the point of what I’m trying to say here, but when we get those kinds of comments, I have faced with the choice, I can either respond and say, Hey, you don’t understand. Here’s what we’re trying to do. And try to give, give some, give kind of our reasoning, or I can just hit delete, or even better delete and...

On today’s episode of the REACHRIGHT podcast, we do a deep dive into seven surprising statics on church giving changes during the pandemic. 

There is no question that the coronavirus has forced many churches to make radical changes to the way they do ministry.

But one of the most significant changes has been how churches receive their tithes and offerings.  

Join us as we unpack the good, the bad, and the scary parts of the shift we have seen in giving over the past six months. 

We hope it helps your church reach more people and grow. 

Looking for the best online giving companies for churches? We created a guide to help you.

1. Donations increased or stayed the same for 55% of churches.
2. When donors give online, 20% of them give more than they would in person. 
3. Digitally savvy organizations see 533% more donations than slow to adopt digital organizations.
4. The average online donation amount grew from $102 to $112.50 – a 10% increase.
5. 81% of churches saw an increase in online and mobile donations
6. 1 in 5 people gave to more than one church.
7. 92% of donors will continue to donate primarily online and mobile when the pandemic is over.