Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 A recent study showed that video content is 10 times more impactful on social media than any other kind of content, which begs the question, what kind of content can churches be producing that is not sermon content? We're gonna give you some ideas in this conversation. Your, you are listening to the Reach Right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Hey guys, I'm Thomas.
Speaker 1 00:00:28 And I'm Ian.
Speaker 0 00:00:29 And today we're talking about church video content that isn't sermons, that aren't sermons. Thats what we're gonna be focusing on today because I find that most churches now are putting, they're filming their sermons and they're putting 'em out on YouTube and other channels on their website, that kind of stuff. And, uh, that's great. Um, yep. I have seen that like the, that YouTube as a platform in general isn't fantastic. Like it's not optimized for sermon style content that's basically talking head unedited, long form content, um, that maybe isn't the content that does the best, uh, on, on YouTube. And that's why we do things like our sermon slang where we do kind of short form videos. We convert sermons into that. That does tend to do better on platforms like YouTube. But I guess that got us thinking then we've been hearing from some of our, uh, customers that, Hey, what else can we be doing besides just putting our sermons onto YouTube?
Speaker 0 00:01:27 And so we thought we dedicated episode to just talking through some of those ideas of, uh, things that you can be doing that aren't sermons but are still video. And I guess when we think about it, YouTube is best. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for content on average, I guess this is kind of a rough number, but we see like eight minutes is the Yeah. Is the, if you're just gonna choose a arbitrary number of like what seems to perform the best. Yeah. Eight minutes of content seems to go well. So these won't all be eight minute pieces of content. In fact, I think most of them shouldn't be that long. Uh, but I think getting something for churches to make that will be shorter in form. Uh, it might be something that's useful. And again, this'll be kind of something that we can throw some ideas to the wall. Some of them may stick, some of them may not. Yeah. Just some new things for churches to try. So I think it should be a good conversation. Anything to add as we jump into it here? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:17 I feel like I still say this too often, even though we're in, you know, um, you know, April of 2023 here now. But I always refer back to the pandemic. But I <laugh> we, we do see now that because of the pandemic, you know, it caused and in one positive way a lot of creativity to kind of arise from churches a little bit more compared to past years. So we've seen some of these things. I think it's, it's very relative for now. Cause I think churches have upped their game. Like you said, uh, pre pandemic. We didn't see most churches doing video sermons. A lot of them were right. Um, but, you know, the majority of church and I come across as, you know, many churches on a daily basis. The majority are. And, um, churches did, and this is great, they up their game with creativity. But I think also now that most churches are doing video sermons, they are looking for ideas of, okay, what can we also, now that we have this video going, we've invested in video equipment and production stuff, you know, what else can we add to our repertoire, if you will. So I think it's, yeah, I think it's a very relevant, um, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:20 Well I think it's good too, cuz I think churches are often looking for content to put onto social media. Um, I think you were gonna share, you, you saw there was a stat that we had. Yeah. Uh, it was like, I mean, I think, I don't remember where it was from. Maybe you can look that up for us as I'm
Speaker 1 00:03:35 Talking, but it's, yeah. This one was need. Yeah. It was, it was a, it was 2018 study, um, from, um, social media today, um, actually that, um, that social media users were 10 times more likely to engage with video content, uh, compared to other forms of content. So yeah, that's, that's, that just illustrates why doing video content's important.
Speaker 0 00:03:58 It's so important. 10 times the reach. Right. That's 10 times the big engagement and the impact that it's gonna have. Yeah. So yeah, it's absolutely something that I think this is the way we should be thinking. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, uh, we've said before that the era of posting, um, you know, pictures of your events and just little text on Instagram and, uh, Facebook that is done. Uh, scripture graphics don't have the impact they used to have. Yeah. Uh, but we are in the era of video, especially short form video. Yeah. And so we have a lot of content dedicated to that. But let's dig in. I guess we'll kind of talk through some of the ones. I think the first idea, again, these are ideas that are not sermons. Yeah. Uh, video content ideas. The first one is testimonies and stories from within your church there.
Speaker 0 00:04:40 Yeah. So I think we've seen this, uh, in churches before mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and this has been something that's always been powerful, right. Um, I think it's great content to go on to social media, great content for your website. I love it when, um, our clients, when we're doing some of their, their website work that we, when we get to take some of their videos that they've produced there of people telling the story of Yeah. Here's who they were pre-Jesus, here's what Jesus did. Yeah. And here's who they are now. I think those kinds of stories are just so impactful. Uh, and they're really great for our social climate here today. So yeah. These are usually gonna be, we encourage churches to make these somewhat short. Right. Uh, so it probably won't, eight minutes is probably too long for these videos, but two minutes is probably too short.
Speaker 0 00:05:24 Or like a Right. You could probably bake them down into a TikTok size, like under one minute type mm-hmm. <affirmative> vertical video. They'd probably be good to be converted into that. Uh, but I think in general, maybe five minutes is a good target for something like this. Uh, and here's some kind of a pro tip I've picked up on this. Cause I've seen a lot of these done here, and I know our video team does some testimonial type work. Yeah. When you, when you do these videos, you want to record much more than what you're actually going to use. You kind of, the way you should record them is not just just telling someone, Hey, tell us your testimony because people are gonna clam up <laugh> and they'll get nervous about those kinds of things and tell 'em that. Usually you want to come in with a handful of questions that help them kind of walk through this.
Speaker 0 00:06:08 And so you'll start them off slowly with some easy questions, just like about how your day was and help them to get comfortable under the camera. Yeah. And then just ask some questions about who were you before, when did you actually meet Jesus? When did that happen? What did that look like? And what is your life like today? Helping them kind of flesh that out a little bit as an interviewer, rather than just telling them, Hey, tell me your testimony. So usually you want to plan on getting probably about 20 minutes of footage in this interview time. Yeah. Maybe even as much as 30. But you'll wanna hone and whittle that down to about probably a five minute clip, I think would make the most sense for something like this.
Speaker 1 00:06:44 Yeah. I like that. The, you're touching on giving some guidance and like a framework to the person giving, uh, the testimon. Because as we know, um, testimonies can also get very long winded. Yeah. And, uh, and can just free flow and uh, yeah. You know, we, I love it. We've seen, uh, a lot of the churches we work with, uh, you know, produce these on their own in-house and they're very powerful. I've recorded one of these, uh, long time ago. You remember, remember back when we were pastoring at the same church? I did one on how I saw God, uh, how my wife and I saw God really work when we began tithing and what, you know, that meant to us. Really, I don't
Speaker 0 00:07:19 Remember that. When, when, uh, what did we do with it?
Speaker 1 00:07:23 It, we, we, that's a good question. What did we do with it? That was, you put it on
Speaker 0 00:07:27 Our website. This is like before people put video on their
Speaker 1 00:07:29 And stuff. Right. He played it, uh, yeah. Played it before the church. It was like in the, the opening, you know, kind of the uh, uh, the meet and greet and the vi the announcements and all of those things. And Well, I'd love to get up my hands
Speaker 0 00:07:40 On that video today. That'd be funny to look at now and see what kind of quality we're putting out there. Yeah. A little
Speaker 1 00:07:45 Less gray. This would've
Speaker 0 00:07:45 Been like 2000 probably or something little
Speaker 1 00:07:47 Less gray and the, the beard, uh, at that time. So, but, uh,
Speaker 0 00:07:51 Probably.
Speaker 1 00:07:52 Well good. I'll get the next one. And it's funny, I was, uh, when I was thinking of this one, I was, this one might be one of the more challenging ones to keep short and maybe Yeah. You know, I'll get your take on this, that there's some, some allowance to go a little bit longer possibly on this one. But that's bible study in small group discussions. Because when you think of a small group discussion, you don't think of short, you're thinking of a gathering at someone's home or at at at a church if you do small groups there at the church, you know, it's, it's usually a lot of interaction, but could be very helpful because this guy, first thing I thought of, this could be a resource for small group leaders that kind of don't know how to maybe, uh, initiate or, uh, lead a the conversations and keep things going.
Speaker 1 00:08:34 Uh, you know, not just within, uh, because we know things can get long, long-winded in small group discussions too. Uh, so not just to keep it short. I mean, you never wanna, you know, shut, this is when people can open up more Right. During small groups. So Yeah. But I think it could really be a good thing too, just to, to highlight the importance of why someone should be in a small group. You know, if you play this at, uh, at church, I know my church does this. We, we actually will, um, have stories kind of more almost like what we just mentioned with the, uh, a testimonial, but it's more someone's story or a family or a couple's story on when they got involved in small groups. Um, so there's those types of things and there's maybe actual small group discussions is what I think we're specifically talking about.
Speaker 0 00:09:21 Yeah. So I, I can think of two ways of this working. So I think the way that we did it during the pandemic, um, that's one idea. I don't see this getting as good a results, um, today. Like, so maybe it's a, a live, uh, a YouTube live where you're answering, like doing a Bible study on there, preaching it and then answering chats, or it's a zoom call recording that you just put up online afterwards that that might work depending on your church situation and whether it's something that's really, uh, something that has a lot of momentum at your church. I think more realistically, um, I think that there's a lot to be said for churches and trying to maintain synergy amongst our small groups mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so if you are maybe going to lead a Bible study, uh, maybe you as the pastor of the church, you lead a short, this could be perfect for like an eight minute bible study that's designed to be played at homes.
Speaker 0 00:10:14 Uh, and then leaders within the church, or maybe home group leaders yeah. Can kind of take that study. You could watch it on YouTube together as a small community there. And then you guys can maybe have discussion questions that go along with it and do some things with that. So yeah, I could see that format working. And then it's actually repurposed because it's placed on YouTube. You have a nice eight minute Bible study. Maybe it's about one particular chapter in the New Testament or Yeah. Something like that you can kind of dig in and, you know, I would try to keep these short, you know? Yeah. You could make a case for doing a 30 minute Bible study and a, a deep dive into a specific passage. But I think usually for a small group context, you probably want to keep it a little bit tighter.
Speaker 0 00:10:54 Maybe I'd say somewhere between eight and 15 minutes would make the most sense. But then that's actually something that if you, especially if you optimize it on your YouTube channel for seo, there'll be people that search for it. So let's say you did one, I read Jude this morning in my quiet time, so I was reading the book of Jude, that one chapter. Yeah. And if you wanted to do a Bible study on it and you did, um, you know, an expository breakdown on Jude, you know, is the name of it, and then you put some of those keywords in the actual description on YouTube, then people looking for a breakdown of Jude, they might stumble across your video and, you know, get some actual results there. So yeah, I think that's a really good idea.
Speaker 1 00:11:34 Good. No, that's good. Why don't you come for the next one.
Speaker 0 00:11:36 Awesome. Next one is, uh, q and a sessions with pastors and leaders within the church. I think this is a, a good use, um, or good idea just to be able to make some content that way. I think. Um, a lot of churches, I think, um, an FAQ section, think of it this way on your website. Yeah. Um, especially for new people, I would create some content and actually some video content that kind of backs up a lot of the FAQ stuff you would have Yeah. On your church website. So, you know, the typical things you'll see on there is like, uh, what am I supposed to wear? Yeah. What denomination is our church? Right. Uh, what, what is the praise and worship time? Like what do you have for my kids? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Some of those kinds of things. So that's more canned, uh, q and a type things.
Speaker 0 00:12:20 But I think there's also something to be said for like, um, a answering questions that maybe people have. Yeah. Maybe it's about bible questions, maybe it's about the church, some of those kinds of things. That's actually a format that we're exploring here at Reach, right. For this podcast is making it more q and a focused. So, um, you know, kind of spoiler, that may be a way that we pivot in the next few weeks here. If you have any questions that you want to ask us in and have us discuss in the podcast, drop it in the comments and maybe we'll add it to one of our future shows here. But I think that's something that is a good form for video. I think answering questions that people may have, uh, that always goes well, cuz it's something that if one person is asking it, chances are someone's asking it as well too. And someone online might want to know the same thing.
Speaker 1 00:13:04 Yeah. I like it too, because the first thing I thought of was just that, you know, someone may have, well, a lot of people will have questions maybe about things pertaining to your church or a message that the pastor preached about. Um, and there's just not time for leadership to get to everyone's questions. So putting this kind of content out could really help that newer person that, like you said is, uh, either hasn't visited yet or, or maybe has visited a couple of times that's, you know, looking to get, you know, deeper involved in the church, but has these questions that are just kind of hard to, you know, ask or, or schedule a coffee with the pastor. And I, you probably want to, you could do that too, but, you know, you might be able to c you know, kind of kill several birds with one stone, so to speak, doing it this way. So, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:13:50 Good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:13:51 Good. The next one's, uh, maybe one that's, it seems obvious, I guess, worship in, in music performances. Um, the first thing I thought of with this though is that, you know, you wanna make sure that this is something that's done of quality, especially if it's like, um, you know, your worship team and everything. You wanna make sure the video, the, the production of that, um, you know, the sound and, and, and that you, that you have a quality worship team as well will help. Uh, you know, and, but it doesn't have to be something that high end. As a matter of fact, it made me think of, well I do the, uh, I use the Bible app for my devotionals whether or not I'm reading a book in the Bible or a chapter, but they do these little daily scriptures. So the word, the message of the day, the scripture of the day, and someone gives a break video breakdown of that. Sometimes it's a worship leader and they break out into like a little mini worship song out of that scripture. And, uh, and it's nothing crazy. They've, they're doing it with their iPhone, but they just have an acoustic guitar. So, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot of different ideas, but, you know, not just a full length, not just your worship full length. So
Speaker 0 00:14:57 Yeah, no, that's not what we're talking about. Like not just taking clipping the worship part of your service and putting out there. Um, you know, I think that that's it. It's when you have such well produced, uh, music videos out there, uh, I think most people would prefer just to go watch Elevation Churches Worship Right? Or Right. You know, a Bethel song or a Hillsong song and watch that online as their worship time. So I think that's, uh, that's a tough proposition there. Yeah. I like the idea you were just getting at and I think of, of making like a, a explainer videos that are maybe tied to a piece of worship. Uh, so like, let's say your church is gonna introduce a new song this week, um, having your worship leader say, Hey, here's a song that we're gonna be playing this week and here's the re what God is speaking to me through this song and why we decided to add it to our playlist here at the church. And I want to go ahead and play it with you guys and you can get used to it before Sunday and give people some ideas around that. So I think that kind of, uh, kind of interaction would do pretty well on video. So yeah. I love that idea. That's a good one, Ian. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:15:58 It's good stuff.
Speaker 0 00:15:59 Awesome. Next one, devotionals and prayer guides. Uh, this is more, um, content that is more organic. Uh, and I think that it's something that would do well with live video. Uh, so I've seen churches have success when they do this, um, for a season. There are future churches out there that do this daily and have been doing it for years, where the pastor gets on there for 15 minutes every morning. And there are some, if you do a look on YouTube, there's some of them out there that are getting tens of thousands of people live every day Yeah. That are jumping on these devotions. So, but that is the, the fruit of years and years, which means hundreds and hundreds of devotional content pieces that you're doing. So a lot of work that's not gonna happen if you just start this tonight, uh, and put out a devotional.
Speaker 0 00:16:45 But I think for an average church, if you wanted to do maybe like a sprint that was like this, like maybe you say, Hey, for the next, the next 21 days we're gonna do a daily devotional online. Um, I'm gonna get on here and share, if you want to comment and pray with us or chime in with your prayer request, that's great too. Yeah. I'm gonna share a little bit from my devotional here and what God's showing me. It's maybe a five to 10 minute type of a video. I think there's some, uh, some traction to be had there for a lot of churches, but my recommendation is do not commit to, I'm gonna do this from now on forever. Um, do this as a sprint, you know, starting to be with a week, you know, this is this week we're gonna be kind of pressing in and we're gonna do these devotionals for a week. Or maybe you want to try for 21 days to kind of build a habit in you. So yeah, these are some ideas. I think that would be something that's pretty cool though.
Speaker 1 00:17:34 Yeah. That uh, you know, we, we know the challenge of a lot of people, um, committing to a devotional or know how to get into that. So this is something that I think will definitely help the life of your church for sure. So, well last but not least, special event highlights and, and recaps. Um, of course, um, you know, again, I've mentioned my church. Of course we have a great production team and all of that. But again, this, this doesn't take being a part of a large church, I mean this, this stuff can be pulled off with probably, like we said at the beginning of this podcast, a lot of churches are already doing good video recording of their sermons. So this stuff can be done relatively easily. But yeah. Event highlights, you know, uh, that are either coming up or ones that recapped. I know one of the favorite things, uh, as a parent that I used to love watching.
Speaker 1 00:18:20 Now my kids are in middle school and, and high school. So, um, I just relived these, these uh, memories. Uh, as far as when they used to go to, uh, children's, uh, youth, like youth, not youth camp, but we did an el we do an elementary one that for days we do a different one for our youth and teens and everything. But you know, we would see the videos cuz we didn't go as parents, right. This was our break from our kids when they go to summer campus. Right. Kids, uh, you know, and you and mom are relieved because you have date time and all of that. But what we would love is when these were over, they'd recap that and, you know, we saw our son show up doing a flip off of a diving board, having a great time when he was at camp and, and stuff like that just is, it's memorable too. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:19:04 I think what's great about these videos is they're very shareable too. So Yeah. Um, you know, you, you go on a missions trip and there's a missions trip highlight and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it used to be that you'd have to go over to someone's house and they'd bring out the projector and show you the slides from their missions trip. Well now we've been able to hone that down, edit it and you can do it once for your church. And then you'll have everybody that went on that missions trip is gonna send it to their mom and their dad and their uncles and their aunts and everybody and their family and it kind of gets it out there. So it kind of has a little bit of viral. Now these aren't gonna go completely viral, it's not gonna be relevant to people that don't know the people in the pictures a lot of times. But I think these videos like highlights of vbs uh, trunker treat events. Yeah. Christmas Eve, Easter egg hunts, uh, mission trips, outreach champs, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Those are the things that we usually see these do really well with. So yeah. Uh, some good ideas.
Speaker 1 00:19:55 Yeah, that's good stuff. Awesome. Awesome.
Speaker 0 00:19:58 I hope it's been helpful to you. These are the six that we came up with. We think that, uh, these are, uh, you implement some of these and I think that's, uh, new things to put in your can besides just sermons each week here. Yeah. And I think every church should be thinking about what is our video strategy. Cuz like we said, it is 10 times more impactful than what we were doing five years ago when we weren't doing video on social media as regularly. So we need to have strategies for this kind of stuff. And so I think these are some good ones to kind of get you going. If it has been helpful, let us know in the comments, rate, review, subscribe, uh, do all those kinds of things. Thanks so much for being a part of the reach Right family. And we'll catch you guys next week. See
Speaker 1 00:20:36 You.
