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Help Your Church Take Action on Their Generosity

As believers, we all experience times when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and we are compelled to action. During those moments, we’re in good company. 

There were many times during Jesus’ earthly ministry when he was moved with compassion to help others. He stopped in the middle of a huge crowd to talk with the woman who touched the hem of his cloak (Mark 5:25–34). He passed by a man who was born blind and healed his sight (John 9). He let a woman who was an outcast wash his feet with her tears and forgave her sins (Matt 26:6–13). (more…)

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How to Use Your TV to Strengthen Small Groups

Small group study with Faithlife TV Church

As a pastor, it’s easy to feel like you carry the entire burden of ministry on your own. You want to lead people into a deeper faith, but there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to disciple everyone. 

You want to empower leaders in your church to disciple others in small group settings, but you’re stretched too thin to get things rolling on your own. 

We’ve got just the solution for you. 

With Faithlife TV Church, you can resource leaders with a small group format that’s easy to repeat. 

Create a group

Faithlife Groups make it easy to stay connected to your small group throughout the week. This online format gives your group a place to safely share personal prayer requests, engage in rich discussions about your group study, and get to know one another on a deeper level. 

Make a plan

Imagine if every discipleship group had access to a biblical scholar. What questions would you want to address? What book of the Bible would you want groups to study first? 

Every small group in your church can experience a rich theological study with practical life application. 

Here are three examples of the 7,000 Mobile Ed courses available to you. 

 

Discipleship and Spiritual Transformation: Practicing Humility with Dr. Gary Thomas.

New Testament: The Ministry of God’s Spirit with Dr. Douglas J. Moo.

Pastoral Care & Counseling: Resources for Marriage with Dr. Eric Johnson.

Learn from respected theologians through 5- to 10-minute video lectures, perfect for busy schedules. The courses cover topics ranging from basics of the faith to complex theological ideas including:

  • Apologetics
  • Biblical Interpretation
  • Church History
  • Communication
  • Cultural Studies
  • Leadership Development
  • New Testament
  • Old Testament
  • And more

Offer additional resources

From women’s studies to theological conversations to marriage preparation and more, the resources available on Faithlife TV Church will help you connect with your small group in a deeper way.

Here are just a few examples of the small group studies that your entire church has access to with a Faithlife TV Church subscription.

I’d Like You More if You Were More Like Me

Sometimes true connection with others can seem an unreachable ideal—but it doesn’t have to be. In this six-part video series, John Ortberg challenges viewers to find connections in even the most ordinary interactions. With access to additional online content, small groups will find encouragement and practical ideas through Ortberg’s friendly invitation to go deeper in relationships.

Learn more.

Crazy Love

The God of the universe loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. How will you respond? Author and pastor Francis Chan shares the truth that God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with himself. The Crazy Love video series contains thought-provoking teachings to spark discussion, interaction, and practical application with small groups, churches, and youth groups.

Learn more.

The Sacred Search

Bestselling author Gary Thomas tackles the topic of love and dating by asking the question: What if it’s not about who you marry, but why? Sacred Search is a video-driven Bible study for small groups of single, dating, or engaged people, helping them dig deep into the ultimate purpose of marriage.

Learn more.

Share and check in

Every week, review the study material ahead of time, jot down some discussion questions (don’t forget to make it practical), and send a friendly reminder to your small group on Faithlife groups. 

Was your group discussion so good you didn’t get to finish talking through everything you’d learned?  Keep the conversation alive using Faithlife groups. 

You can even share documents with your entire congregation so that every group can study the same materials and discuss the same videos.

Empower others

The goal of this process is to disciple people in your group so that they can begin discipling others. Once a group member is ready, encourage them to branch out and start their own small group. 

With

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3 Steps to Make Your Church Giving Campaign Compelling

There’s a reason New Year’s resolutions like “pray more” tend to fail. “More” is vague—when will you feel like you’ve reached your resolution? And if you’re talking about a church giving campaign goals, “more” means practically nothing to your donors. [Read more…]

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Turn TV Habits into Discipleship Opportunities

Turn TV Habits into Discipleship Opportunities

Do you ever feel like you’re in an uphill battle for your congregation’s attention? If so, you’re not alone. 

People are more distracted than ever by screens. And even if we happen to have the TV on, chances are we’re probably doing something on our mobile devices. As of 2019, the average person spends four hours per day watching TV. That adds up to 20 hours on weekdays alone and doesn’t include time spent on social media.

There’s a healthy, even spiritually beneficial way to watch TV: viewing Bible-based content in community.

One way to bridge the gap between mobile and face-to-face relationships is to invite your church to enjoy faith-inspiring films together. Faithlife TV Church is a churchwide subscription that gives your whole congregation access to video lectures, Bible-based documentaries, films, kids’ shows, and more.

Your Faithlife TV Church subscription gives you and your congregation access to over 7,000 video lectures from prominent Christian teachers—plus more than 1,000 documentaries, Christian films, and kids’ videos.

Here are the different ways your members can benefit from Faithlife TV Church.

Family-friendly movies

Faithlife TV

Give your congregation a Christian alternative to secular streaming services. With a robust library of Christian content, you can rest easy knowing your members have access to good Bible teaching, Christian TV, kids’ shows, family-friendly movies, and exclusive Faithlife Original content. 

Bite-sized theology

Learn from respected theologians through 5- to 10-minute video lectures, perfect for busy schedules. The courses cover topics ranging from basics of the faith to complex theological ideas including:

  • Apologetics
  • Biblical Interpretation
  • Church History
  • Communication
  • Cultural Studies
  • Leadership Development
  • New Testament
  • Old Testament
  • And more

These videos span hundreds of theological topics that can provide years of small group study opportunities. With more than 7,000 Mobile Ed videos at your disposal, your options are extensive. Explore apologetics together. Dive into a focused study of Matthew. Choose a Christian living topic and discover new insights.

Exclusive Faithlife Originals

Faithlife has been using technology to equip people to study the Bible for over 25 years, and we’ve now added original faith-based films to the mix. We want to help people in many walks of life engage with the truths of the Bible—from kids to lay leaders to scholars—and we’re using Faithlife Originals to do just that. Here are a few examples of the Faithlife Original movies only available through Faithlife TV. 

Fragments of Truth

Join Dr. Craig Evans as he travels the globe to track down the most ancient New Testament manuscripts. Along the way, he highlights groundbreaking new evidence, demonstrating that the case for the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts is stronger than ever.

Authorized

In this surprising and entertaining film, Dr. Mark Ward explores the challenges facing readers of the King James Bible today. He shows why every English reader can benefit from today’s translations—and why you might not be as fluent in KJV English as you think.

Bible Agent 7

Bible Agent 7 is a cartoon series for children designed to spark their curiosity about the Bible. Bible Agent 7 is on a mission to rescue a fellow Bible agent who has gone missing. To find him, she’ll have to rely on her ability to search the Scriptures—and the help of her friends.

Sermon streaming

With a Faithlife TV Church subscription, you can automatically publish every sermon to your church’s own Faithlife TV channel.

Your congregation can rewatch the sermon or catch it if they missed it. You can also upload discussion questions or study guides to go along with your sermon, perfect for small group study.

Faithlife TV Church includes Faithlife Sermons because we want to help you build a stronger message.

  • Find the perfect sermon illustration from a growing collection with over 6,000 anecdotes, stories, quotes, and more. 
  • Search thousands of sermon transcripts for ideas and inspiration for your sermons, and get feedback from other pastors on your own sermons.
  • Discover the perfect art for your church’s media needs. You’ll get unlimited downloads of over 700 motion graphics, 6,000 announcements, sermon series backgrounds, and stock photography designed for churches.
  • And more.

Faithlife TV Church can transform the screen into a discipleship tool, with enough variety to match everyone’s tastes and tech habits. Learn more about Faithlife TV Church.

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Faithlife Ebooks Weekly Deals: September 10–13, 2019

Here are this week’s top deals, brought to you by Faithlife Ebooks. For more deals, visit our sale page or get our Free Book of the Month. Some of these deals are only good for a few days, so act fast to get these books at the sale price! [Read more…]

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3 Common Ministry Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

Preparing for church services is hard work. It takes a lot of prayer, planning, and teamwork to consistently construct services that encourage others and glorify God.

That said, sometimes we make it harder than it has to be. Here are three mistakes to avoid when planning your services—and how Proclaim can help you with each one.

1. Work alone.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The same is true about teamwork in the church. You may be able to design the bulletin or set up the stage faster than anyone else, but have you thought about the corollary to that? You are minimizing what you could accomplish if you were to spread the work around.

What are those aspects of preparing for Sunday morning where you are needlessly working alone? Comment below to share ideas for how to collaborate more effectively. What have you found that works well? What doesn’t? There is no end to exploring what it means to be a body of believers working together to achieve one purpose.

Proclaim was built for church collaboration. It comes with unlimited installs on Mac and PC and syncs everyone’s work automatically. That means that all at once, the church administrator could be building announcement slides, the worship leader lyric slides, and the pastor sermon slides. It saves you from passing files around, and everyone can chip in easily to build a great presentation. Check out the video below to learn more.

2. Start from scratch.

Part of being a good steward, whether of time or money, is following the cost-benefit principle. Is your investment (cost) worth the outcome (benefit)? It may sound a bit calculated, and you can’t always measure it objectively, but generally, it’s a great paradigm for decision-making.

Here’s a question that can help you apply it in your service planning: Has someone already made what I need, and is it worth using rather than building myself? This could include curriculum, a website, or even slide backgrounds.

For example, Proclaim comes preloaded with hundreds of designs made just for churches by a team of professional designers, plus options for thousands more. This saves you scouring the internet for stock images and graphics, as well as spending time meticulously designing just one slide. You can also check out Unsplash.com, which has thousands of beautiful photos you can use for free for any purpose.

3. Take the long way.

Have you ever undertaken a simple task that ends up taking well over an hour? It’s frustrating. If someone were to look at your workday hour by hour, would you be embarrassed by your level of busywork?

One key to efficiency is targeting tasks you do daily or weekly, and then learning to do them quicker. If you work at a church, this could include preparing Bible lessons, sending announcements, or even designing presentations. Between changing font sizes and colors, aligning text, or adjusting color schemes, it can literally take hours just to put together a handful of slides. And that’s just for one week. Multiply that by 52 weeks over however many years, and you’re talking about hundreds or even thousands of hours designing presentations.

One way Proclaim helps you streamline this is by doing the formatting for you. You simply type in what you want a slide to say, and Proclaim plugs it into predesigned slides so it looks great right away. Plus, it remembers all the slides you’ve ever built, the templates you most recently used, and all the songs you’ve ever sung—including the verse order—so you can easily reuse past work. You can even link your CCLI subscription with Proclaim to avoid ever having to type a lyric again.

What are some ways you’ve streamlined weekly ministry tasks without sacrificing quality? Share your ideas in the comments below.

A lot of work goes into planning services—and rightfully so. But avoid these mistakes and you can make sure you’re using your energy well, rather than wasting it.

You can always turn to Proclaim for help avoiding these mistakes, too. If you haven’t tried Proclaim, now is a great time to start a free trial. For a month, you and your whole church will get access to powerful church presentation software, plus over 14,000 professionally designed pieces of media (no credit card required).

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Grandparents, Your Spiritual Legacy Starts with Remembering

By Mark Holmen, adapted from Faith Begins @ Home Grandparents.

When you read the first 13 verses of Joshua’s farewell address in chapter 24, you see that Joshua begins by recalling all the things that God has done for the people of Israel. It is clear that Joshua does not want them to forget who their God is and what their God has done for them. [Read more…]