Across the country in small towns, cities and major metropolitan areas civic leaders are issuing shelter-in-place precautions for the coronavirus pandemic. This leaves church leaders few options when communicating with their congregation. Even a large church with live-streaming capabilities can't perform their online services.
Today, what is critical is leaders create video content that families can watch on any device. Even in these uncertain times, world-class shows, like Conan O'Brien are being shot from home. To that end, Conan O'Brien and his staff aim to prove that it's possible to produce a full-length television show from home using technology. "All my staff will work from home, I will shoot at home using an iPhone." O'Brien wrote on Twitter.
Step 1 - Create:
Shooting from home is easy for leaders to do. Just follow these tips in the video below.
Step 2 - Link your Orange Account:
Once your video is shot you can upload it into Playlister. You can invite all your leaders into your account and have them upload their videos. We strive to provide your entire ministry team a collaboration space to build curriculum playlists. After your personal videos are in place you can link your Orange account and have a comprehensive lesson ready in minutes.
Step 3 - Share your playlist:
Once your playlist is ready, we provide several ways to instantly deliver your content to folks at home. The easiest way is to create a public playlist that can be viewed online by any device.
The bottom line is that everyone is scared and stressed right now. Your message of hope is more important in times like this than ever before. It should be easy for your team to send that message to your families and Playlister & Orange exist to help you do this.
Northview Church gives us a great example of how leaders can combine custom videos with Orange curriculum and share these lessons with their congregation via Playlister.
Kurt Brodbeck the Family Ministry Pastor at Northview church describes how they are using Playlsiter, "we are using Orange curriculum but I’m recording videos of myself to transition each segment of our online [Playlister] experience. I think it’s so important that our families continue to see a familiar face in this time of distancing."
Kurt continues, "It helps them stay connected to Northview and not feel isolated. (We are doing a lot of other things to try to help people feel known, but I believe our weekend experience is the main way that we will have the opportunity to stay engaged with people) The stuff that Orange is putting out is great and we are still using their curriculum but Playlister allows us to personalize the experience for families."
What critical in times like this and the future are we keep families engaged with meaningful content families can watch at home. Kurt expands on that idea more, "We can also add activities or retells for the families to do at home and then give specific challenges for families. So the Orange Vimeo stuff is great and it flows well, but it can’t be customized to speak directly to the families. Right now, In Playlister have a video of me speaking before worship to encourage the whole family to get up. I create a game they can play in the living room and then instruct them on how to do it. We always encourage family memorization so I can help give guidance to that and family prayer time. And then, in the end, I have been giving social media challenges for the week and that helps people feel connected to their church too. So far the feedback has been incredible."
With this type of feedback, minds begin to look to the future of ministry and Kurt shares his thoughts on what could happen after the virus.
"I’m thinking we are going to continue this even after Covid-19 because it allows us to meet families wherever they are. We know that families will travel or do weekend sports, and up until now, we didn’t have a great way to do Northview Kids online. Now I’m thinking we could show Playlister as a great resource for families to do church together with their travel sports team or while they are at the lake house. I’m excited to see how this COVID-19 situation causes us to be innovative and move ministry forward in the future."
We are making all these features available for free for the time being to help in this crisis. Just sign up for a Playlister account and you can begin sharing with your families at home in a matter of minutes. If you have questions please email us at support@playlister.app. We have support staff on standby this week, including on Sundays.