Online services, live chat hacks, & new decisions to follow Jesus (Facebook Live session 4 summary)
Rather than simply helping guests to “climb the Assimilayas”, these days we are helping them climb the “Cyberssimilayas” because the summit of full connection for guests has become a virtual destination during this extended quarantine.
As sherpas leading online guests toward that summit, conversation not content has emerged as the most effective route.
I will keep sharing learnings on Facebook Live until new routes with new tools for connecting guests are identified for future use as the “new normal” slowly reveals itself.
In my fourth Facebook Live on reaching guests online during the quarantine (8am Tuesdays PST at on my facebook page), I shared what we learned on Easter where we saw 59 guests share their contact info with us and 124 text us to let us know they made a first time decision to follow Jesus.
The learnings I shared last Tuesday morning fell into 3 categories.
New realizations about our live stream services
An online service should be shorter than normal as families watching together have a shorter corporate attention span.
Pre-recorded video announcement loops can be aired before and after the services to give people a reason to log on early and stay later, see and hear a variety of familiar voices, and reduce the burden of communicating all of the announcements during the the actual service time. Each announcement for Easter had a familiar face from each campus.
Leave your most important ask of everybody for your senior pastor to make as part of his teaching. On Easter, Gene Appel made it the invitation to follow Jesus and texting NEXTSTEPS to 545454 to make it known. This last week, it was to join us for the 21 Days of Prayer. These “asks” have been determined for the next few weeks.
Video bumpers and transitions are good to edit in to make smoother transitions from worship time to message time.
Assume guests are smart, have a lot if issues they are facing right now , and are not informed about biblical church language. I shared the new landing page for Canyon Ridge Church’s website in Las Vegas as a great example of language that speaks to the heart and mind of online guests right now.
Refer to first time guests as such when you welcome them and before you ask anything of them. Acknowledge them as first timers by offering them a hospitality gift of some kind. This becomes your digital One Place to get their contact info.
For those of us that are multisite, we have only one campus now: our online campus. Manage it centrally and connect all your processes for connecting guest to it.
Live chat hacks for engaging well with guests
I was doing a live video podcast a couple weeks ago where I was commenting on how guests are much more slow online to give us their contact info than they were before when we were physically together. While I was sharing this, a millennial called in and schooled me. He said that when meeting physically there was a parking lot, lobby and aisle to have conversation in and observe others to gauge relational connection. That is entirely gone now that we are online. He said he would not make himself known until there was time to have enough conversations to make him feel relationally connected.
Makes sense. Enter live chat.
Since engagement, not content will get people to return and connect, I am watching closely how this happens on our live chat feature and other elements of our live stream services. Here are some ideas and hacks that have emerged.
We are using Life Church’s free live streaming platform for our online services. Now that I have been moderating them for over a month now, I am learning how valuable it is to put ready made scripts with links in them in the host notes feature. It is too easy to copy/paste them into chats when people ask questions or when announcements are shared.
Having several moderators is key so a couple can use the prayer feature to direct chat/pray with guests while others are free to keep engaging other guests in the chat feed. It also allows hosts to share the burden of link sharing so that no specific moderator begins to appear like the “spam king or queen”. Choosing a lead monitor for each service to communicate with the other moderators on the live host feature is a great idea as well.
In these few weeks, we have learned that the focus of the moderators needs to change during certain parts of the service.
Before services: talk it up
Welcome people by name as they log on. Ask seed questions to get people talking with each other like, “Where are you all watching from?” or, “Any great new food places you are using to deliver food to your door this week?” We are finding people are logging in from all of the world. My neighbors down the street identified themselves as well which was great for multiple reasons. Conversation and connection will develop between the guests and members themselves if you do this right.
Offer tech support for people during this time. Many experiencing church online for the first time are unsure of how to go full screen, eliminate the chat feature if it is distracting, and more. This is the time for that kind of helpfulness. It is also the time to share links to webpages relevant to your announcement loop. This includes links to giving pages, signup forms, and free resources for them and their families.
Bottom line: talk it up during this time. People are getting to know you, each other and your church during this time.
During services: talk it down
This is the time to begin focusing the chat on the worship experience and message. Minimize chit chat and draw attention to the worship time by commenting on meaningful lines in the music, sharing links to youtube videos of the worship song so people can enjoy it later. During the message, paste in scripture relevant to the subject (cross references). Paste in a good quote from the message (send your pastor’s notes out in advance to your moderators for this purpose) and link the big ask he may make during his message. During these times, people will click the prayer feature more than ever so take advantage of direct chat praying during this time.
Bottom Line: Talk it down during this time by directing attention to the worship, message and prayer.
After services: talk it out
This is the equivalent of hanging out in the lobby or cafe after church. We keep the chat going for 20 minutes to a full hour afterwards letting those who attend determine the wrap up time. Questions about the church, the sermon, how to get answers or help for this and that abound during this time. Offer to pray with people, and minimize sharing links during this time as that will come off too spammy and agenda driven for the feeling of these moments. Direct chat with those who need personal attention and be sure and thank everyone for coming and worshipping with you today.
Bottom line: Talk it out as people process the experience, give virtual hugs to each other or make themselves known to you for the first time.
Use of texting to make known first time decisions
Through beta testing, I have found that guest do not make themselves known for the first time via text. It could be that they feel more vulnerable sharing their iPhone’s “digital footprint” as supposed to sharing an email address with us.
Surprisingly, we had 124 people text in their first time decision to follow Jesus and receive resources to jump start their new journey. This told me 2 things:
Guest don’t make themselves known until they are engaged in some way
Being moved to make a decision to follow Jesus is a meaningful form of engagement.
We use expresstext.net to receive and send texts to those who opt in. We formed a text campaign to drive them towards our digital Next Steps coming in May. All texts also come to my iPhone via expresstext.net so I can return them without revealing my phone number.
At the next Facebook Live, I will be sharing details about follow up text and email campaigns for church online, muting and deleting standards for problem people and more.
To learn how to build an assimilation strategy from scratch or enhance your current efforts, take my video course or request a zoom Base Camp for your staff.
See you on the climb,
