{"id":720903,"date":"2020-09-10T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T06:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=720903"},"modified":"2020-09-10T09:33:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T13:33:44","slug":"creating-a-structure-for-digital-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/creating-a-structure-for-digital-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating a Structure for Digital Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By now you are tired of hearing how much has changed since March. I will spare you the grandiose talk of &#8220;unprecedented times&#8221; and all of that. What has amazed me is how quickly churches have made the pivot to online ministry in such a short period of time. I\u2019m convinced that we have done ten years\u2019 worth of innovation in six months. Let that sink in, and then own the fact that you have led well in this season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that many churches have reopened and routes forward are being plotted, we are repeatedly hearing leaders wrestle with how to continue to gain momentum with their virtual ministries while at the same time continuing to grow their in-person experiences. This isn&#8217;t easy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, where do we start? I am convinced that we need to begin by defining how we are going to do virtual ministry. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we have learned from churches and researched best practices, we have determined that there are 5 models for doing virtual ministry<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The Old Normal:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> These are churches who want to get back to the way things were in January. The goal is to have everyone back together in the sanctuary and to move forward from there. These churches will have recorded sermons on their website in an on-demand format, but not much else.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The Simul Service:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> These churches have the goal of everyone being together, in-person, on Sunday mornings but will live stream their services so that those who are on vacation, sick, or otherwise indisposed on Sunday morning can have a &#8216;second-best&#8217; option for attendance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The Building Feeder:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> BuildingFeeder churches ultimately want to have everyone together, in-person, on Sunday morning, but recognize that Sunday morning programming that is customized for their web and social channels can be a great front door for potential attenders. They approach their virtual ministries as a campus and program accordingly.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The Campus Launcher:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This model is less focused on having people together on campus, but still highly values in-person gatherings. The goal of this model is to birth additional campuses, whether they are micro-sites meeting in people&#8217;s living rooms, or full-service campuses made up of hundreds of people. CampusLaunchers have a more regional approach to their virtual ministries as it ultimately leads to a new physical campus or church plant.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>The Digital Disciple:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This is the most radical model of them all as it seeks to engage and disciple people that they may never physically meet. The DigitalDisciple church seeks to extend its reach beyond its region, desiring to create a fully virtual church that makes disciples across the globe.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We dive more deeply into what we are seeing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chemistrystaffing.com\/online-strategy\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in this free download<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but here is what we know: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">there is no right or wrong model<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each church will need to decide for themselves as to which model is the best fit and then begin to optimize their current staffing, budgeting, and programming to fit the model.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the model isn\u2019t important, what is important is committing to one strategy and moving forward, to continue to build on the successes and momentum that you have experienced over the last six months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interested in learning more about the online ministry strategy options? <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chemistrystaffing.com\/online-strategy\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We unpack them more deeply in this free resource<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the model isn\u2019t important, what is important is committing to one strategy and moving forward, to continue to build on the successes and momentum that you have experienced over the last six months. \r\n","protected":false},"author":9043,"featured_media":720904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[183,180,185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-720903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communications","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-worship"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Creating a Structure for Digital Church | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Each church will need to decide for themselves as to which 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