Afleveringen
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Featuring Daniel Jenkins, President, and Kristin Sukraw, Chief Storytelling Officer at StoryFind Films
Recorded live at the Digital Ministry Conference 2025.
In this engaging session from the 2025 Digital Ministry Conference, Daniel and Kristin explore the intersection of storytelling and data, offering powerful insights into how ministry leaders can use data to amplify the impact of their stories. Drawing from real-world experiences, including a heartwarming story of a young girl receiving a Braille Bible, they show how intertwining compelling data with storytelling can drive engagement, inspire action, and bring about measurable change.
Integrating data into storytelling not only strengthens the narrative, but also makes it more memorable and impactful. Daniel emphasized the importance of surprising and relevant data, which captivates the audience's attention and builds trust. By utilizing Aristotle's Rhetorical Triangleâethos, pathos, and logosâthey demonstrated how data adds credibility and logic to emotional appeals, creating a more persuasive call to action.
For digital marketers in ministry, this session is packed with valuable takeaways:
How to incorporate data seamlessly into your storytelling for maximum impactThe importance of data mapping for more effective communicationWhy data needs to be surprising and memorable to drive actionPractical steps for using data to inspire change in your audienceTune in to this podcast to learn how to craft stories that resonate deeply with your audience and motivate them to engage with your ministry. Whether youâre looking to enhance your donor appeal or inspire volunteerism, youâll walk away with actionable insights on using data to strengthen your ministry's storytelling efforts.
Resources Mentioned in the Session:
Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-jenkins-a3a75090/Connect with Kristin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-sukraw/StoryFind Website: https://storyfind.com/Kristin Sukraw Website: https://www.kristinsukraw.com/Lutheran Braille Workers: http://lbwloveworks.org/Learn more about Five Q Digital Marketing: https://www.fiveq.comFoundations of Storytelling â Free Training Session: https://storyfind.com/dmc2025
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Featuring Sarah Sharp and Mike Costlow, Truth for Life
Recorded live at the Digital Ministry Conference 2025.
When Truth For Life wanted to turn Alistair Beggâs two-year devotional series into an audio experience, they faced a challenge: time constraints made it impossible for Alistair to voice hundreds of entries himself. In this Digital Ministry Conference session, Mike and Sarah share how Truth For Life tackled this problem by responsibly and creatively adopting voice-cloning technology.
Rather than starting with a tech trend, they began with a ministry needâand brought in Theotech founder Chris Lim to help build a custom voice model of Alistair. Youâll hear how they navigated data collection, audio model training, and ethical considerations like consent, transparency, and ownership. Youâll also learn how they chose to run the model on-premises (saving costs and boosting control), built editor-friendly workflows, and thoughtfully introduced the AI-generated voice to their audience.
Key Highlights for Ministry Marketers:
AI Grounded in Ministry Need: This wasnât tech for techâs sakeâit was solving a real bottleneck in delivering Alistair Beggâs devotional content.Ethics and Transparency: From securing Alistairâs consent to publicly disclosing that the content is AI-generated, Truth For Life modeled best practices.On-premise vs Cloud: Cost-effective and scalable, their on-prem deployment avoided per-word pricing models.Quality Control: Audio engineers used AI-assisted editing to fine-tune the voice output, ensuring the tone, cadence, and inflection matched listener expectations.User Feedback & Reach: Since launch, the devotional audio has been streamed over 960,000 times in 190+ countriesâincluding Antarctica.Explore the power of responsible AI adoption in ministry and hear how Truth For Life brought the voice of Alistair Begg to hundreds of thousandsâwithout compromising quality or trust.
Resources Mentioned in the Episode
Truth For Life â Official ministry site
Truth For Life Podcast on Apple
tfl.org/dmc â Listen to sample audio from the voice model
Theotech
Chris Lim on LinkedIn
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Featuring Chris Martin, Director of Content, Moody Global Media
Recorded live at the Digital Ministry Conference 2025.
In this compelling session from the 2025 Digital Ministry Conference, Chris Martinâveteran digital strategist and content leader at Moody Global Mediaâpulls back the curtain on how ministry teams can use data not just to drive vanity metrics, but to deepen real connections with their audiences.
With transparency and humor, Chris recounts lessons from the infamous "pivot to video" era and how platforms like Facebook once inflated metrics by up to 900%. He uses this cautionary tale to highlight a central truth: not all data tells the truth, and not all metrics matter. Instead, ministries must learn to focus on engagement and meaningful interactionsâthen use that insight to draw people into deeper channels of connection, like email and direct relationships.
For digital marketers and communications teams in ministry, this session is a goldmine of takeaways:
Why your email open rate may matter more than your follower countHow to interpret social metrics as communicationânot just performancePractical steps to shepherd your audience away from algorithmic platformsHow to avoid the trap of pleasing stakeholders instead of serving your audienceTune in to this podcast to rethink your strategy and walk away with a clearer roadmap for using data to inform contentâand ultimately lead your audience into deeper ministry engagement.
Resources Mentioned in the EpisodeChris Martin on LinkedInTerms of Service newsletter by Chris MartinMoody Bible InstituteChrisâs Book: "Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media"
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Featuring Adam Graber, Christianity Tomorrow & Co-Host of Device & Virtue Podcast
Recorded live at the Digital Ministry Conference 2025
How do we saturate the digital world with Scripture? In this episode of the Ministry at Scale Podcast, Adam Graber unpacks findings from groundbreaking research conducted in partnership with the British and Foreign Bible Society. With a deep understanding of digital theology and years of experience consulting ministries worldwide, Adam reveals the current state of Bible engagement across 27 âdigital nationsâ â platforms with over 70 million monthly users â and outlines where the greatest gaps and opportunities lie.
Listeners will discover which platforms are overserved or underserved by digital Bible creators, the surprising dominance of individual creators versus organizations, and what types of tools and alliances are still desperately needed. Whether you're a ministry leader, strategist, or digital content creator, this episode offers data-driven insights and a compelling challenge to rethink your role in the digital Bible ecosystem.
Recommended Resources:
https://adamgraber.com/
Christianity Tomorrow
Adam on LinkedIn
Device and Virtue Podcast
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Dave Raley of Imago Consulting works with nonprofit and business leaders to help them grow
revenue profitably. His mission is to help nonprofits and businesses identify and understand
opportunities, develop new strategies, and launch new products and initiatives.
In this episode of The Ministry of Scale podcast, Chad Williams interviews Dave whose
upcoming book, The Rise of Sustainable Giving, explores how the subscription economy model
is transforming nonprofit fundraising. Raley draws parallels between the widespread adoption of subscription services (like Netflix or Spotify) and the increasing comfort with recurring
donations. He explains how organizations can tap into this trend by creating a strong recurring
giving program.
Dave outlines foundational steps for nonprofits to build these programs effectively. First,
nonprofits need internal focus on recurring givingâassigning someone responsible for its
growth. He stresses that nonprofit tech stacks, especially CRM and donation platforms, should
support scalable and ongoing donor engagement. He also highlights that recurring donations,
unlike one-time gifts, benefit from a well-communicated value proposition, showing donors the
long-term impact of their support. By building strong, personalized donor relationships,
nonprofits can see exponential growth in recurring giving.
Resources:
sustainablegiving.org
Dave on LinkedIn
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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 â 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 â 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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.
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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 doesnât mean youâll 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 theyâve done.
Innovate, Experiment and Embrace Failure
Itâs 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 theyâre donating to will do what they say they will do. Jennifer McCrea from the Generosity Network puts it like this:
âResources will tend to flow naturally towards you when you focus on the most important aspect of the fundraising process: creating human connectionsâ. 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
Itâs incredibly important to understand somebodyâs intent. Whatâs their connection? Why are they giving? Whatâs their motivation for giving? The first thing to find out is âwhyâ. 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. Donât 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. âSome organizations will thrive from this increased chaos, some will be unprepared and some will merely fight it and lose.â as Seth Godin put it.
View Generosity Beyond the Transaction
There are often so many transactions, itâs 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.
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Anthony Elliot is a senior software developer at Five Q. On todayâs episode of the Ministry at Scale podcast, Anthony joins Chad to talk about conversion tracking and why itâs so important.
For many people unfamiliar with conversion tracking, thereâs one big question: what are conversions?
As Anthony put it, it has similarities to a spiritual conversion. Much like how a spiritual conversion involves a person on a journey through life interacting with something that causes a change, a conversion on a website happens when a user comes to a site and interacts with the site in some way. This could include signing up for an email list, engaging with articles, posting on social media or even donating.
Conversions are important because they provide data in order to more effectively use advertising in ways that actually work. You can start testing and optimizing based on how you know people interact with your online presence.
In order to track conversions, you need to know the journey that a user takes. Asking questions such as these can help you to understand how people interact with your site:
What are they doing on your site?
How long are they on each page?
Are they a recurring donor?
The process to set up conversion tracking can be done many ways, but the way that Anthony and the 5Q team have done it successfully is to set up Google analytics to track conversions. It can be a daunting task to begin understanding this process, but Anthony gave an example about how it works. If you wanted to track donations, for example, you can create a âthank youâ page that users are taken to when they donate. You can set up google analytics to track how many people visit that specific url each day, thus tracking the number of people who donated in any given day. Another way to track this is to link your Google ads account to Google analytics in order to capture which ads are most successful and which ads need adjustment.
To learn more tips about conversion tracking and how to do it well, listen the the entirety of episode #74 of the Ministry at Scale Podcast.
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In this session from the Digital Ministry Conference, Pete Marra, the Vice President of Innovation at the Colson Center discusses how to get started with risk mitigation for your ministry.
Your Ministry is Like the Three Little Pigs
In the story of the three little pigs, each pig picked different materials to build their house, one used straw, another used sticks and the last pig used bricks. When the Big Bad Wolf stopped by and began huffing and puffing the results were often disastrous for the little pigs. Your ministry is likely built on straw, sticks or bricks as well, though it is most likely a combination of materials and risk assessments will help you identify the areas your ministry is being held together by straw.
Building Resilience Through and N+1 Mindset
N+1 comes from network administration. It stands for Node plus 1 which means you have your main node (server, channel, means of communication etc.) plus an alternate or backup in case something happens to the main node. When thinking about this in your ministry you need to think beyond just your data, you need to think about N+1 in terms of people, processes, and technology.
The 4 Aâs of Risk Mitigation
Assessment - What is it that you are going to measure to assess the risk score of your ministry. This will be based on probability and impact.
Alignment - This is about bringing agreement across your team as to what your risk is and how you will handle it.
Assignment - This is where you decide who will head up your risk mitigation plan.
Action - This is where you put your plan into action and start building resilience into your ministry.
Resilience Doesnât Have to Be Expensive
One simple way to ensure you donât lose your data is to download it from the cloud and store it offline somewhere. For example you could get a backup of your email list.
Bottom line Pete, wants to make sure that the biggest takeaway you have from his talk is to get started, anything you put in place is better than having nothing in place to mitigate risk. Pete shares many more practical ideas so be sure to listen to the full episode, but whatever you do, get started now.
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John Cobb is the Vice President at Ligonier ministries. He started looking into Web3, Blockchain and the Metaverse simply as a way to understand what they are and how they could impact ministries going forward. What he found is that there are three main buckets he thinks ministries should be considering. The three categories are community, content and censorship.
Community
When he first began he discovered NFTs since he has an interest in art and photography but found that it goes beyond the art, NFTs can also be used to build community and show membership in a specific community. When building a community one thing that is important is owning the community so that it is not fully dependent on a platform that you donât control. Many people think of this in terms of collecting email addresses or other contact information so you can still reach them if the platform goes away. Blockchain and decentralization take this one step further by allowing the platform for communication to be secure and resilient.
Content
When it comes to content there is the possibility of censorship and deplatforming coming in America, but there are many places around the world where censorship is already in place, and there is a real risk for those who spread the Gospel in those areas. Blockchain in particular could provide a secure way to distribute content digitally.
Censorship
This topic dovetails nicely with the other categories. Making the world virtual (as in Web3), decentralized and secure (via blockchain and NFTs) enables you to build security and resilience within your systems. This is also a way to future proof your digital ministry.
This is a high level overview of the types of things you should be thinking about for your ministry. John takes some time to answer specific questions and dive into details, so if you have questions youâll want to listen to the full episode.
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Marketing Communications can be a critical part of your ministry. It ensures your message is presented effectively, all of your resources are consistent so you can stand out in a sea of other organizations and that your materials are engaging your audience. In this episode we speak with Cheryl Brunkow, the Marketing & Communications director at Bethany International, and she shares her five Câs for building an effective communications strategy.
The five Câs for effective communications are clear, clean, concise, consistent and creative. Be sure to listen to the full episode as Cheryl gives very practical advice on why these are important and how to implement them within your organization.
Clear
Itâs critical that people can understand your messaging if they are going to get excited about the mission of your organization. All too often in ministry we design things around our own personal experiences which require a significant amount of explaining for others to understand. When youâre creating your messaging make sure it will be meaningful to your audience.
Clean
Reviewing for things such as typos, or grammar and spelling errors, will go a long way in showing that you value quality, and are a professional organization. Taking the time to make sure all of your resources and materials are clean will go a long way toward building credibility with your audience.
Concise
It takes time to build the right messaging, but If you can not clearly communicate what youâre about in a very concise way, then your message is going to get lost, and likely misinterpreted.
Consistent
There are a lot of moving parts in any organization and keeping consistency in your branding and messaging throughout all departments and channels is important for building your brand identity. Your audience wants to know that your whole team is working toward the same mission and vision rather than a collection of individuals doing their own thing.
Creative
The world around us is filled with amazing creative and engaging things that pull our attention in a lot of different directions. As ministries we need to be on the same level as the secular world in terms of both quality and creativity. Designing creative materials and experiences will not only get peopleâs attention but it will also keep them engaged over the long term.
This summary is just scratching the surface of what Cheryl shares in the podcast, so whether you are in the middle of rebranding, building a new communications department, or just need to breathe new energy into your communications you wonât want to miss this episode.
Resources:
Bethany InternationalThe Poisonwood BibleLess Chaos, Less Noise by Ken MeyersCreativity Inc.Wait, Wait, Donât Tell Me Podcast
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Shae Bynes is the Chief Fire Igniter and founder of the Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur movement. On this episode of the Ministry at Scale Podcast, Chad sits down with Shae to talk about what a kingdom culture looks like and how to focus on using a kingdom approach to business.
In 2009, God told Shae to quit her corporate job at IBM.
She originally started out as a software engineer and had continued to work her way up in the company, but she knew it was God telling her to move on because it wasnât in her plans. Less than a year later, she quit her job at IBM with little guidance on what to do next but continued to trust in Godâs faithfulness along the way. After some time, she got connected to a woman who would eventually become her cofounder of Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur. She knew that it was a God-given friendship and since then, she has worked to help others take a kingdom approach to business.
What does a kingdom approach look like? Shae breaks it down into 5 categories.
The first piece is identity, which the other 4 pieces are built upon. You need to be able to trust that you can hear Godâs voice and allow him express Himself through you. Itâs very much a discipleship process as you learn to build an identity based on how God sees you.
The next is assignment. Whatâs your assignment? Does it match up with Godâs assignment for you and your business? Financial ROI is important, but we also need to focus on eternal ROI.
The next is assets. We have an unlimited God that we are in partnership with. What does it look like to operate out of Heavenâs economy? Itâs not about operating for provision, but rather from provision.
The next is culture. How does your kingdom culture affect your company, self, and your business ecosystem along with all the people that you touch with what you do in business?
The final part is operations. When we take a look at marketing or any other aspect of a business, we need to be asking what we can learn from Jesus. How can we avoid the ways of the world when it comes to marketing or staffing or any other part of our business?
The whole point of all these is to help people align with the King of Kings to let God influence the world around us through our work and through our businesses.
To learn more from Shae Bynes about how she uses social media and how she focuses on efficiency in her work, listen to the entirety of this episode Ministry at Scale podcast.
Resources:
https://kingdomdrivenentrepreneur.com
Grace and Grind by Shea Bynes
A Catalyst for Change by John Bost
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During his time at Bott Radio Network, the director of marketing Sam Rinearson came to speak at the Digital Ministry Conference in 2022. He taught how to personalize your user's experience in a way to build connection and to increase your number of divine appointments every day.
Personalization is defined as âthe process of tailoring a message or an experience to each individual which speaks directly to their needs, interests, and concerns.â In todayâs day and age, weâve come to expect personalization. On Netflix, we expect to be told what to watch based on our watch history. All throughout the tech industry, we expect someone else to know what we want.
Sam breaks data down into two categories: readily available data and actively collected data. Readily available data collection can only tell you what has already happened such as Google analytics and Mailchimp. Actively collected data is the information you can get from your current users. Sam has had success collecting this type of actively data with surveys and questionnaires. He tends to go straight to analytics, but has learned that sometimes data collection is as simple as going straight to users to ask simple questions.
Of the data that you acquire, you have to be able to sort through whatâs useful to you and whatâs not. It can be helpful to first ask âWhat do I want to know?â then go and find the data that answers your question, rather than going to the data first without having a clear idea of what youâre looking for.
Data tagging is an important aspect of personalization as well. Within the audio world, audio transcription is something that Sam highly recommends people to do if they donât already do it. Itâs useful for categorizing content and for helping people find exactly what theyâre looking for. According to Sam, youâre not going to be able to make good connections with users if you donât have good tagging
To learn more from Sam about the power of personalizing your userâs experiences, listen to this entire episode of the Ministry at Scale podcast.
Resources:
Journity
Finney Media
Bott Radio Network
This talk on YouTube
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