Blog – Page 9 – Motion Worship – Video Loops, Countdowns, & Moving Backgrounds for the Christian Church

3 Strategies: Get Youth Ministry Students to Bring Friends

Youth pastors want for nothing more than to have students develop community with each other, build genuine loving relationships with God, and grow in their faith with one another. And I’d argue that you would be hard pressed to find any youth pastor where “growing the youth ministry” isn’t one of their top 5 priorities. But growing a youth ministry is tough. Usually, a youth ministry is...

Hiring Church Staff: Tried and True Practices

Hiring the right church staff is incredibly important if you are actively working in ministry. It’s especially important in churches smaller than 500, as all staff are working closely with each other every day and weekend. Hiring a bad candidate doesn’t mean one department of the church suffers - it can drag down the efficiency, morale, and culture of all church staff. Unfortunately, many c...

3 Ways to Make Sermon Slides Look Better

Accompanying a sermon with visuals helps to clarify and drive home the message exponentially. That’s what sermon slides are for. It’s meant to reinforce the message and give an easy-to-digest summary of the main points of the sermon. But sermon slides aren’t always helpful. In fact, in many instances they can detract from the message. Bad design, poor font choice, improperly sized text, t...

Healthy Church Tech Director to Worship Pastor Communication Tips

Communication is everything in ministry. Good communication practices can help a ministry to operate ats fullest potential, while poor communication (or a complete lack of communication altogether) can cause a ministry to crumble. The same is absolutely true for worship ministries. More specifically, the communication practices between a tech director/media director and the worship pastor are s...

When is My Church Ready for a New Building?

Many church leaders dream of the day when their ministry grows enough for them to be able to move to a new building. It’s an exciting prospect! Having the chance to search for a place that will be the ideal building and location for your ministry is huge. But knowing when the day has arrived can be tough. You may be financially ready for the move, but is that the only thing that matters? If y...

What Drum Equipment Needs to be Replaced at My Church?

Drums are supposed to be the life, dynamics, and foundation of any worship song. But usually… church drum sets sound BAD. If you’re reading this article, you probably are experiencing it firsthand. Obviously, as with anything sound-related, getting a good drum sound is a multi-facetted topic with endless factors including equipment, room, acoustic treatment, mics, mixing, the drummer who’s a...

How to Plan Ahead as a Church Tech Director

You’re the first one to band rehearsal and often the last one to leave. You may frequently be in charge of setup and teardown in addition to all the work you have to do during rehearsal and on Sunday morning for all services. Being a church tech director is a lot of work. We understand! Most church tech directors will agree that the most valuable thing to them is “time”. You need time ...

Getting Your Congregation Excited About Giving

Giving a sermon on tithing is difficult. Obviously, we all know it’s a Biblical teaching, and the church survives only as a result of people’s commitment to and generosity for her mission. But everyone tends to think of giving as a necessity. As a chore. Giving 10% of your income as a tithe to the church frequently feels like an obligation rather than a joy, and it seems that in the last sever...

Reducing the Impact of Church Staff Turnover

Working in ministry can be one of the most demanding jobs. Aside from a few very large churches with hundreds of employees, most church jobs require you to be flexible and versatile in a variety of areas. Any church staff member will tell you how grateful they are for their fellow coworkers, as they recognize just how much each person carries on his or her plate when working in ministry. That b...

How to Properly Handle Church Complaints

If you’ve worked in a pastoral role for any amount of time, you know full-well that there are people who just love to complain. And generally, most of the complaints received in a church always seem to come from the same few congregation members. Complaining is a habit in some people - there’s no doubt. And it can be hard to deal with when much of it is aimed directly at you. But complaints...

4 Factors That Affect Church Attendance

Pastors are almost always in tune with the state of their church attendance. But getting down to what it is that truly controls your church attendance is a tricky task. There are so many varying factors that will affect church attendance and nearly every church will have unique aspects that differentiate them from others. So, while this certainly isn’t a fool-proof, all-inclusive list, it is ...

Pastoral Care: Things to Consider

Pastoral care is a tough job, primarily because it doesn’t rely on one individual but the whole community system and leadership structure of a church. You’re all working there for the sake of impacting peoples’ lives and helping them through times of need and crisis. But that’s incredibly difficult when people feel let down. A pastor misses a hospital visit, doesn’t get the memo on tr...

Where to Find Inspiration for Unique Sermon Series

Anyone who works a repetitive job is prone to going through creative ruts at some point in their career. Obviously, no week is every the exact same as a pastor, but there’s no doubt that you deal with a lot of repetitive tasks on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. The most obvious task that falls in that category is sermon prep. Sermon prep is the most repetitive task of a lead pastor at...

Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges

Most pastors consider their job a great privilege and blessing. Having the opportunity to lead a congregation and grow their understanding of God’s word is an incredible joy. However, being a pastor isn’t without its challenges, and pastoral care can be an incredibly difficult job at times. Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges As a pastor, every day comes with unique blessings and challe...

5 Tips for Creating a Committed Worship Team Culture

Commitment is everything when it comes to building a healthy worship team culture. When volunteers aren’t committed, they are minimally engaged and seldom excited about ministry goals or long-term trajectory. 5 Tips: Create a Committed Worship Team Culture If you’re struggling to keep volunteers committed and engaged with worship team, it may be time to revise your approach. Creating a c...

3 Tips to Be More Efficient with Sermon Prep

Being a pastor isn’t a typical day job. You’re pretty much on call 24/7, and it’s rare that you ever have the ability to devote 100% of your attention for an extended period of time to any one thing. That’s just the nature of the job. Being a pastor is a lot more than speaking on a Sunday. But… sermon preparation is incredibly important and it’s a weekly activity. While you probably...

Ditch the Drum Shield: A Message to All Churches

Drum shields are a touchy topic. Primarily because everyone seems to be super opinionated about it. Drummers *hate* climbing into an enclosure, and sound guys *hate* dealing with loud drummers. I’ve played drums in countless - differently sized - rooms for various styles of music and I can tell you with full certainty that drum shields are not necessary. Don’t get me wrong - I completely, 1...

How Often to Introduce New Songs at Church

You want worship music to be engaging and reflective of your church’s culture. Every church will have a unique selection of songs that fit their congregation best. However, while sticking to your roots is smart, that doesn’t mean you need to leave your congregation singing the songs over and over. In fact, if you are frustrated that your congregation is not involved and engaged in worship as m...

Why is My Church’s Giving Decreasing?

Church giving is so important for your ministry to thrive. You know more than anyone how valuable congregational giving is for the growth of your church, and the investment in worship, youth, young adults, and other ministries. But giving isn’t always the easiest topic to deal with. Your church will almost certainly go through seasons where congregational giving is down. The question is - why is...

Working Ahead: Building a Sermon Calendar

Staying on top of your work as a pastor can be difficult at times. You wear a lot of hats, and depending on your church size and culture, you may be working what feels like much more than a single job. But your primary job as a pastor is to lead your congregation and “make disciples”. While preaching a sermon allows you to teach someone about a single concept or passage of scripture, “dis...