What the quarantine sets us up for, another live chat hack, & new thoughts about online volunteerism (Facebook Live session 6 summary)
The video above is an 8 minute summary of some thoughts I shared in my 6th FB Live the first week of May. It’s about how the quarantine can function as a “reset” of things for our planet, each of us personally, and your church. Despite the resent riots, protests and racial injustices, I still think that 2020 will be seen as a massive reset button culturally, economically, ecologically and spiritually.
Now that I have hosted 10 Facebook Lives about what assimilation looks like online, I want to post summaries of the last 5 of them each day this week. Here are other topics we discussed at my 6th Facebook Live during the quarantine.
Live Chat Hack
Here is a hack for that awkward moment on live chat when you seem to have more online moderators than guests on the live chat to moderate: Identify in advance a couple moderators to log out as moderators and log back in as guests.. Have them participate in the live chat, commenting and asking questions.
Watch what happens. People come out of the woodwork. If you choose the person wisely, they may draw people into the chat based on how they are known. Some moderators choose to change their name in some way so it is not as easy to identify them. That has worked too.
Anything that creates engagement online is going to win the day. Remember: people will go where they are known, not where the best content or teaching is. If they are wanted and loved, they will return. They can get content off of YouTube and other church websites. What you offer people is being known and loved.
That’s why Jesus didn’t say “They will know you are my disciples if you have good teaching or a great online service”. He saw our leadership tendencies and set up loving people as the benchmark. This should be the goal of every online service.
How do you help people volunteer when you church is online?
Our Next Steps Online begins in May. Step 03 of Next Steps is all about helping our guests choose a team to serve on. How on earth do we do that online though? Pre-quarantine, we trained everybody on how to discover their SHAPE and took our guests on an all access tour. There were 6 stops on the tour that revealed 6 areas where people could serve on our campuses. We asked them to choose one of them to begin the journey of serving others at the conclusion of the tour.
Problem: We don’t have those same ministry opportunities online.
Bigger Problem: People may disengage soon if they know they are not needed. That’s a key part of community. Small groups say “you’re wanted”. A role on a ministry team says, “You’re needed”. Being needed will keep people engaged in following Jesus with us online as zoom fatigue kicks in, the weather improves and aspects of the quarantine lift.
Solution we are exploring: Online volunteer positions. This will not only serve us now but in the new normal when our online campus will be more of a “thing” than ever before.
Churches who have already had this in place are ahead of the rest of us. We will all have to catch up. For my church that means considering a new way of inviting people to serve with us. that new way involves creating around a dozen online volunteer positions and organizing them by where there at in their spiritual journey, not just by ministry area.
Here’s why we are talking through this option. While working with some churches in Ecuador last year, one young leader explained something to me I will never forget. He said that for my generation, we were transformed spiritually starting with our heads (the gospel & other teaching), it moved to our hearts (in the form of surrender), and ended up in our hands (new habits and practices).
He then dropped this bomb. His generation is transformed in reverse. Millennials and Gen Z experience spiritual transformation starting with their hands (get them dirty by serving on a team), then it moves to their hearts (as they see what happens when people serve and love others in Jesus name), and finishes in their heads (as new beliefs and convictions are developed about what they’ve experienced).
This generational distinction has many huge implications. One of them for us has been making sure that our church has volunteer positions that a Buddhist or atheists could serve in. Yes you heard that right. At my church, around 20% of our volunteer positions do not require you to believe in God or be a Christian to serve in them. If we don’t have positions like that in our churches, how will the next generation get their hands dirty so they can experience transformation?
Sound heretical? Let this sink in. That may have been what Jesus did when he let 12 very different people follow him and serve others with him a full year and a half before one of them figured out who he really was (See Matthew 16:13-20 to find out which one it was…).
This is why we have green light, yellow light and red light volunteer positions at my church and we will have to have them on our online campus also. Here’s what that means.
Green means go: “Are you new to this, still exploring your faith but want to give back in some way?” Let’s have you move into a breakout room on zoom to discuss opportunities like data entry, tech support, and more.
Yellow means caution: “Do you consider yourself a new follower of Jesus or one who has not served through a local church before?” Let’s have you move into a breakout room on zoom to discuss opportunities like being a next steps discussion leader, being a live chat moderator at our services, video editing, social media and more. We will spend some time getting to you as we orient you in these roles.
Red means stop: “Have you been following Jesus for awhile now and want to expand his influence in a new way through your life? We would like to have some time get to know you and train you so you can consider roles like being an online small group leader, Next Step Host, and more in a zoom breakout room. Stoping allows time for these people to be vetted appropriately amongst other things.
In each of these groups, they will hear about online opportunities to serve and given links to forms that will have a volunteer champ ready to set up orientation, interviews, and training so they can be onboarded.
If this kind of approach to volunteering intrigues you, get my online course. Watch session 5 on volunteer placement processes and how to automate them for every department in your church through a volunteer champ system. You won’t regret acting on that concept.
Also, an additional session is being added to the course that covers how to apply all this to the new online context we find ourselves in. All those who have already purchased it or are about to purchase it will have access to this new session.
Tomorrow, expect a summary of FB Live session 7 in your inbox. It’s all about how to create an online version of your One Program for guests (think Next Steps, Starting Point, etc.). I’ll be sharing about ours, how its going, the structure of it, and more. Talk to you then!
