How to Create an Online Ministry Team

[Tom Pounder] Today we're going to talk about how you can create your own online ministry team. Are you ready? Because it's time. [Announcer/Intro Voice] You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network. [Tom Pounder] Hey heroes, I'm Tom Pounder and this is the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast. This is the podcast where I bring in ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world that we're living in today. And today I've got my friend Christopher Wesley back on the podcast. He's been on the podcast numerous times and I'm excited to have him on because we're going to talk about how to create an online ministry team. See, the reality is that when you first got started with online ministry, most of us probably got started during the pandemic, or you could have started even before that. But the reality is that you were probably a one-person team. You were probably doing everything, and you were trying to just make things work the best way possible. Well, in order for your online ministry to be really effective, You have to form a team. I mean, this is true of online ministry. This is true of any ministry that you're a part of. In order to be most effective and reach as many people as possible, you need a team of people around you, not just staff people, but volunteers as well. So what does an online ministry team look like? Today, Christopher and I are going to talk about that, but before we do and get into that, I do want to just highlight The Church Digital. At The Church Digital, we've got a few different things in there that I think you're going to love to go check it out. So go to thechurch.digital, and there you've got the podcast network and a whole bunch of blogs. It's not just my podcast and Jeff's podcast. There's lots of different podcasts there talking about online ministry, your personal and mental health. There's lots of great podcasts out there that you want to check out. But also at The Church Digital, we have lots of coaching. Whether you're going into doing digital ministry, a combination of digital and in-person, or just digital, or even metaverse ministry, we've got lots of different coaching and cohorts that you want to check out. So check out the equipping page on thechurch.digital. But right now, I want you to listen to my interview with Christopher Wesley about how to create an online ministry team. All right, with me right now is my friend, Christopher Wesley. Chris, how are you, man? [Christopher Wesley] I'm doing well, Tom. Man, it's another year and another set of adventures, and I'm doing well. Well, let me clarify that. I'm doing well, but I am tired. [Tom Pounder] Well, because not only are you going through COVID stuff and all this stuff, juggling what ministry looks like during this crazy time we're in, but you're in grad school too, right? [Christopher Wesley] yeah yeah that was like you know how people started making bread and buying pets and stuff like that during uh the pandemic i decided to go to uh grad school uh for my master's in pastoral theology um and it's 100 online so it's actually it's it's it's great um i uh i think this was like the type of education i probably needed for undergrad but you know 20 plus years ago that wasn't really like a thing so so yeah that is awesome and uh and you're wrapping up is this your last year is that you said i i'm hoping so you know it's just uh trying to squeeze in two classes a quarter and uh so by the end of this summer um i will have my masters i will have mastered something tom i am the master of nothing so there you go at least between the two of us one of us will have a master Hey, you just cherish free time better than I do. [Tom Pounder] So, you know, that's true too, a little bit. Well, Chris, again, you've been on the podcast numerous times. You're one of my oldest podcast interviewees. You've been on probably a dozen times, it seems like. I mean, so you've been one of the more popular guests, but there could be some people who may not know who you are. So other than going to grad school and whatnot, tell people about who you are. [Christopher Wesley] like i'm the alec baldwin of your podcast you know like i made some but uh no oh i don't know if that's a good comparison so scratch that no but um i almost spit out my coffee right there that's all right that's all right so yeah i'm uh i'm a full-time uh youth minister at a local church a local catholic church here in baltimore and At the same time, I founded an organization called Marathon Youth Ministry back in 2016. And the purpose of our organization is to provide cohorts, coaching, and collaboration for ministry leaders to help them rediscover their joy, you know, that joy that God gave them through that, but also to help them build these systematic and sustainable ministries, especially ministries to reach the young church. And, you know, we started mostly out in youth ministry, but now we're expanding a lot into children's ministry. I'm working with some, you know, parish teams, clergy. And even though we're primarily Catholic, we work with other denominations as well. [Tom Pounder] uh and we're going to talk a little bit about some great things you have coming up a little bit later but again my simple plug is i have christopher on for a reason he's very knowledgeable he's got a lot of experience and if you've never checked out marathon youth ministry you need to he's got great content regular blog he's consistent in blogging he's got other things there as well so definitely go to marathonyouthministry.com And we'll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later. I also don't have you on because you're a Yankee fan, even though you're in Baltimore area. So, but yeah, that's neither here nor there. [Christopher Wesley] Yeah. [Tom Pounder] Do you think, do you think they have a shot at the title this coming year? [Christopher Wesley] If we have a baseball season, I mean, you know, it's like, but well, who knows at the time that this airs, but no, I, you know, I think they do. I think they do. I think that yeah. You know, it's interesting because I think they're working at a couple of things, especially with pitching. You know, last year, you know, since Masahiro Tanaka had retired or went back to Japan and everything like that and not having a sustainable number two, but with Severino coming back, you know, and being a viable number two with Garrett Cole. I just have some hope there. But yeah, you know, we never know. We never know. Baseball is a funny sport. [Tom Pounder] So it is a funny sport like that. And you and I could talk about that for a while. Again, we still owe it to ourselves to go to a Baltimore Orioles game one day, meet in the middle of sorts, you know, and go to an Orioles game together. [Christopher Wesley] so um tickets are pretty easy i think still to get i think i think they're now paying people to come to the games and um hey you know who knows it'll be interesting with their new uh uh outfield dimensions yeah um whether uh they'll draw more fans in or just uh you know whatever i saw that and rolled the eyes when i saw that they did their dimensions but oh well you know hey whatever [Tom Pounder] Just get a better team. Okay. Anyway, so Chris and I could talk about this for a while, but we won't. We're going to talk about developing an online team. You know, when the pandemic started, Chris was one of those guys, just like many of us, who got thrust into doing online ministry. Chris was very... does student ministry and a lot of student ministers got sucked into it that's how i initially got into online ministry as well i was a student minister they said you do you do online ministry so you should do this and i'm like okay um but in in the span of you know days and weeks chris put together some systems and processes to get his parish online uh and it was awesome and i'm gonna actually include there's two specific podcasts that chris and i did uh that talked about what he did and how he set that whole thing up but we're going to talk about a team uh because you know a lot of people you know that we just work do online ministry by ourselves and so how how do you create a team and what do you look for uh so chris and i are going to talk about that right now so chris just uh tell me about your situation and um how you guys got started with your team [Christopher Wesley] Yeah, so again, and I think we talked about this in previous episodes, pandemic happened. I have a background in electronic media communications. So in addition to being the student minister, I had that qualification going for me. And it's fun to talk about this over a year later since we've installed all, we're always updating and upgrading our equipment, but it was about a year ago where we finalized getting all the upgrades in the sound system and video equipment and everything. and it's been about a year since i've actually kind of really replaced myself um in in that team and it's still going strong and so um so yeah i'm more than happy to talk about that um i think like Using that, you know, using that as a starting point. Right. So I'm still involved with managing the online team to an extent, but it's not something that I'm as involved in as I was over a year ago. And part of the reason is because I'm the student minister and I was sharing my time a little bit more. I've got more and more family and children's responsibilities that have fallen under my plate. So I remember saying to our pastor, like, there's no possible way that I'm going to continue to do this, right? So I think anytime you're starting a new program, or even if you are this, let's say you're one of those rare people where you're hired as the middle school youth pastor, and that's all you do, right? Like, doesn't matter if you're wearing multiple hats or one hat, day one, you need to start asking yourself, okay, how am I going to replace myself down the line, right? And I think that's the importance about building any kind of team, even an online team. Because if you don't look at that, you will feel continuously stuck or you will build a ministry that's centered around you. So that's just, I think, a transferable principle all around. [Tom Pounder] Well, let me ask you real quick. Again, why do we want to replace ourselves? [Christopher Wesley] Well, it's because we're stewards, right? We're not owners, right? Like, I'll get biblical on this and everything like that, right? You know, God gave us leadership as a stewardship. I think Andy Stanley said that. I mean, a lot of people have said that, but, you know, leadership is a stewardship. And so there's going to be a time in a day, whether you move to another position or church, or you just retire. um and the thing that i don't know about you tom but i never want to like look back at something that i've done and said like i built it so much around me that um it couldn't continue right like as much as i love getting my ego stroked and everything like that like it just can't be about me so i think that's principle number one and and when you do that right building a team you need to build a team around you especially at a leadership level that have like-minded people to that as well that it's not about them that they're humble servants you know all about serving the lord in that regards yeah i i think you're right on on that because again i think initially when you [Tom Pounder] get into a position say you're you get into this online ministry and it's like oh man i this is my job now this is it but the reality is like you don't want to get to a point after you leave or move to a different position for some reason that is that it crumbles down like i think there's that ego in me that is like oh yeah i don't want it to be as good But really, if you have a godly perspective and kingdom perspective, you do want it to be better without you. You want it to be better. And so you have to set that up so that you can be replaced. And then you can move on to do something else and be a steward of another area. [Christopher Wesley] Amen. Amen. And, you know, so I think one, replacing yourself. Two, and this is especially important, I think, with any kind of like technological teams that you're building, whether it's online or, you know, digital marketing or whatever. Is to give your team members permission to play permission to create you know, one of the things that we did going into last summer so. So let me just fill this into one of the key things about replacing myself was also hiring someone so we actually hired an associate of our audio visual ministry at the parish. and uh it's a young guy named math and he's actually a college student you know and uh just you know uh applied to the position and is killing it um and so um what as we were going into last summer i talked with math and i was like yeah we just have to continue this sort of um feel culture that we are a a ministry that's about exploring and creating and so you know we did a little um study over the summer uh with the book creativity inc um are you familiar with that book tom it's uh the story of pixar um oh yes i have heard of that before yes yeah yeah and um and ed uh uh i always mess up his last name camille um uh he wrote the book and you know talks about him and john lassiter building pixar and one of the big principles that they had in it is that they encourage their employees to spend about like 20 of their time 10 of their time each week just doing something that had nothing to do with their job or nothing to do with any specific tasks or projects that they were working on, but it was a chance to create different things. And that's how they started to create better software, better computerized programming to help them improve Pixar. And so that was one of the things that we started to initiate. And what's been really cool is it's helped our volunteers really get in and our interns get into this idea of trying different camera styles, equipment, software, and it's not all dependent on me, right on our math and to execute these ideas. and so when you're building an online team especially an online team but this works with youth ministry children's ministry whatever give people time to create and to think beyond outside the box so that those ideas as scary as they might be might come back and influence and bring your ministry to the next level [Tom Pounder] Dude, I love that. Really, I love that because you're so right on that. When you give people the freedom to create and be creative, who knows what will grow out of that? Maybe it's something small that grows out a year later or something like that that develops. And especially with technology, technology is constantly changing. I mean, obviously, we're talking about the metaverse right now. We weren't talking about that last year. [Christopher Wesley] i mean right but we're talking about it now and so if you allow give them permission to think outside the box and be creative like that it is going to help your team especially your online team yeah yeah and i would say the third thing it's not the final thing but the these are the top three things right replace yourself focus on creativity and the third one and uh this might be obvious to a lot of people but might not is uh you know make sure your team knows the purpose of your online community and and tom like i know this might be different between denominations but you know um and uh let's use live streaming for an example right live streaming in the catholic church should not be a worship tool as much as it is an evangelization or discipleship tool and or discipleship tool And so what that means for our team is that when they're broadcasting the mass, that's not just about like C-spanning it. And at the same time, it's not about creating a worship experience where people can get comfortable at home. Because I know this is a big problem right now, right? People are not coming back to the physical church either because they're forgetting about church or they're complacent about going to the building and they'd rather watch it at home. And I don't know, I'm open to debate on this, but I think it's our job as the church to create such an inviting experience and educational experience to the faithful that tells them why worshiping in person is so much of a richer and deeper experience than worshiping online or just worshiping online. And that's not to negate online worship. There's definitely a place for it, and I think it's necessary. But it shouldn't be a substitution or a supplement. It should be an entryway into what God has called the church to do, which is to come together physically and worship together. [Tom Pounder] yeah i listen this is the debate that everybody has every church kind of encounters and and that's the thing with us you know we at my church we want to encourage we want to do excellent online ministry we want ministry but we also want to create a feel like i mean really there is no better thing option than in-person worship i firmly believe this and i'm the online guy at my church yeah but i believe to come and experience church and community in person is ideal. It can't always happen, but it is ideal. And so you want to create that experience where like, hey, this is awesome. This is an amazing experience that we get online, but we're also missing something out. And I've seen churches... And our church included where we said what it was like for people who were online to come in person and that experience that it was for them. And we share those videos on social media and in person. Again, it's not to negate online ministry. I'm a big backer of that. So are you. But again, in-person worship together, there is something different about that. And again, I always go back to Christmas and Easter. The first year where we did Easter online only because of COVID, I didn't feel like it was Easter because I didn't experience that in-person gathering, the people, the celebrating together of Easter. It was just a different experience. [Christopher Wesley] yeah yeah no and it's so true and and the purpose of me bringing that up too is not to create any kind of shame for people who are watching online but it's it's really to put it on us the church right those of us who work especially those of us who work for the church to like to to think about okay if i'm using this as a tool for evangelization or even a tool for discipleship to teach people about what worship is then what are the things that I need to do that are going to convince them that, yeah, being in person is better to help them overcome that fear, right? Because there's some kind of fear or major obstacle that's preventing them from coming in person. And then at the same time, utilizing that to talk to your... um in-person staff right about making sure that the experience that they have when they do come on campus is quality right so that it's not like they're not like oh my gosh it's just a bunch of smoke and mirrors but that you are advertising you are communicating what reality is um especially you know you mentioned the metaverse right especially as more and more people get into this virtual world and people might say like hey you know what i can feel like i'm present in that church because i just you know slap on my goggles and my gloves and um all of a sudden i'm in a room with what it feels like our group of people and so again not i i think we need to be in the metaverse but um that's a conversation for another time but uh um i think again it's we're we're missionaries um in this online world bringing people closer to christ in any way possible i love what you just said that we are missionaries and i like to use the phrase or the term digital missionary we're a digital missionary [Tom Pounder] And, you know, I like to point out, too, what Jay Cranda used to say years ago. I don't know if he still says this, but again, we want to encourage the way we can get people from online to offline, that in-person thing. And so that's good. And that's part of it is, you know, creating a great team online where you're creating great experiences that also highlight the great experience you can get in person as well. All right. So let me talk to you about this. when you're looking at an online team, is there a bare minimum of people that you need? Like how many volunteers do you have currently? How many did you start out with? Yeah. [Christopher Wesley] Yeah, that's a great question. like one of the things that we have to revisit is, you know, we didn't have a lot more people at the beginning, but then once things started opening up, there was a little bit of attrition. And then I think, you know, with the emergence of Omicron, you know, during Christmas and stuff, when things started to shut down again, people were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like to get back involved in this and everything. So, you know, what, as you mentioned at the beginning right the minimum you can run a decent online thing is is with one person if you have the right equipment but really like what i would suggest is try not to ever have a hard number of too many people and so what do i mean by that like yeah you probably at the end of the day at least with the setup that we have which is know we have ptz cameras which um you know are mounted and everything like that controlled with the joystick we have um you know we use pro presenter and um obs and uh you know um and then we have a little mini digital soundboard so really at the end of the day three people can comfortably run it um but we have found when we have um you know a fourth or fifth person there we can um we also have another uh hd camera that we can unhitch and move it around um always having someone shadowing or being a runner in that regards for one service for one mass right so we're talking about three to four people per mass but you know what we're starting to do is like look at other areas that we can live stream um you know uh you know how are we live streaming some of our children's ministry how are we live um how are we doing more post-production work you know and things along those lines this year we worked with one of the local high schools to get an intern this kid brendan he comes like uh three times a week and he's working on all this post-production stuff and he i mean he he is awesome he is brilliant wow that's that's cool yeah yeah and so um you know if if you're the youth pastor you know or soon pastor talk or or just pastor talk to your local high schools because a lot of them actually have internship programs and if you know there's always this hesitancy of church and state and everything like that but a lot of these schools will send their students to your church if they like are doing something like av um or finances or something that like could be considered secular even though it's not you know and uh yeah so brendan's a really good example of that um there um so yeah our team is growing and then the other thing too is our team spans in age right like um you know you've got regular adults like you and I, Tom, but then we'll go as young as fourth grade, fourth and fifth grade, to run some of the equipment and just be a fly on the wall. And some of them are far more talented than some of our adults, especially with using some of the joysticks that we use for the camera, because I think they're just used to, I forget the term, right? They have the dexterity, right? Is that right? Dexterity. [Tom Pounder] You got me on that one. [Christopher Wesley] Um, to, um, you know, move the camera smoothly. So it's not jolting all the time and everything like that. So, um, yeah, so don't be afraid to go young and don't be afraid, uh, to just continue to add people to that team, even if you run out of rules. [Tom Pounder] Yeah. I mean, listen, age is not a matter. You can go young. You can also go old. We actually had last weekend at our services, we had, I do believe he was like 65, almost 70 years old doing one of the cameras. I mean, again, there's a lot of things that people can do. Chat hosts. We've had chat hosts that are older and they're just caring, nurturing people. they work really well in the chat room uh it's funny that you said that like um earlier that um you know at the very beginning of covid you had a lot of volunteers because that's what people were doing and then slowly but surely they start you start losing your volunteers and now you're scrambling again um to get more volunteers but yeah so it's it i guess it's like all ministries you have high points you have low points uh but that's great All right, well, as we wrap up, any final thoughts that you would say, any words of wisdom that you have about an online ministry team? [Christopher Wesley] Yeah, and I think I talked about this in one of the previous episodes when we were talking about live streaming and everything like that. And this is, don't be afraid to rely on the teenagers or young adults in your parish to help you with this. Because you know again when i started out i had one other former youth pastor who was a member at our church who helped me out but initially um we were the oldest by like 20 years you know from the rest of the team and those those kids who were you know um close to some are in college now but like they really um they really stepped up and performed at a level of excellence and there were plenty of hiccups know times when the live stream crashed or cameras fell over or you know things happen but um it did not deter them from coming back um and if anything they we all had a lot of fun doing that so i would say you know if you're struggling to find volunteers don't be afraid to ask teenagers they are capable of handling high-level equipment like that um and uh yeah just uh just invest in the young church [Tom Pounder] I agree. I think there's a lot of things that kids can do these days because of technology and their exposure to technology at such a young age that they can figure out. I often ask, I'm the tech guy supposedly at my church, but I'm constantly asking my daughters to help me with things. I mean, they know stuff. Like, I mean, one time I needed a video edited really quick and I didn't know how to do it on the iPad. And I just gave it to my daughter. She did it in like 20 minutes. I mean, it was so easy. They can do this stuff so easy. And a lot of times, much better than I could. So I think that's really important. Yeah, I think that's important. Okay, well, Christopher, it's always great talking to you. But before I let you off the hook here, I know you've got some cool things happening with Marathon Youth Ministry. Talk to me a little bit about that. [Christopher Wesley] Yeah, sure. So we just reopened our online membership where, you know, if you go to MarathonYouthMinistry.com and you click on membership up there, it'll take you to our MYME portal. And we've got several online video courses that you can take anything from small group to confirmation prep to growing yourself as a leader. But what I'm really excited about are cohorts. And we have one in particular cohort. in partnership with the 10 by 10 initiative. And if you're not familiar with the 10 by 10 initiative, it's this movement that where a whole array of organizations are coming together from Fuller Institute to Youth Cartel, Orange, National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry, and the list could go on. It's interdenominational. And the 10 by 10 stands for reaching 10 million teenagers over the next 10 years with 10,000 churches. And so we're trying to invite churches of all denominations to join us. And you can learn more about this by going to the 10by10.org or marathonyouthministry.com. And Marathon is launching a cohort utilizing a lot of the methodologies that we embrace with our cohorts, but having it fueled by a lot of the content that comes from the 10x10 initiative and that's going to launch in march and it'll be a year-long commitment monthly cohort meetings along with some individual coaching i will take you through the m code assessment and provide you with other materials and experiences as well And Tom, I'm really excited because it's actually, we were able to receive some funding to bring it down to $499 per church. So that's a year long worth of coaching content and cohorts there. And you can learn more by going to marathonyouthministry.com backslash cohorts, or just go to the main website, marathonyouthministry.com and check it out. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, that's essentially $40 for lots of great training. $40 a month for lots of great training. You can't really go anywhere else to get that kind of stuff, and it's year-round. Again, you can probably sign up for it in a variety of different cohorts or whatnot, but here's, again, with what Chris has is he's got tons of experience, as I said before. He's very easy to relate to and walk alongside of you. His team is fantastic. So I would strongly encourage you to go to Marathon Youth Ministry and sign up for it. Drew Chris, so you can be part of Chris's one and do that. You will not regret it and it will really encourage and inspire you. [Christopher Wesley] Thanks. Yeah, there's my plug for you. [Tom Pounder] But it's a good plug because, again, you've got great stuff. And I love reading your stuff. And again, what I like to say about Marathon Youth Ministries, it says Marathon Youth Ministry, but you have a lot of leadership articles on there that I take and apply into any, you can apply it into any leadership context. So it's really helpful. Kind of like what we just talked about online teams. You can apply these online team principles into any team that you're forming. definitely definitely yeah okay sorry chris um twitter can people connect with you on twitter will you will you respond to them on twitter [Christopher Wesley] Yeah, so it's actually kind of funny. I was talking about online churches and social media. And I still check the Twitter, Chris R. Wesley. So Chris R. Wesley. And then in regards to Instagram and Facebook, we do have a Marathon Youth Ministry Instagram and Facebook account that I'm not always on, but my team is. So you can definitely respond to that. But yeah, if you want to connect right now, Twitter or LinkedIn are the two main ways to connect with me. But I'm also open to email. If you want to shoot me an email at cwesley at marathonyouthministry.com, I'll do my best to respond to you. [Tom Pounder] That's great. Yes. Again, I think we met through your blog and maybe even through Twitter. And so, and again, you're one of my friends too that I have actually seen in person. We met at the Orange Conference. [Christopher Wesley] Just once though, Tom. This is amazing. Like, so, you know, talk about online experiences. Tom and I have known each other for years now. Like we can say several years. [Tom Pounder] yeah and uh we've only met in person once but this summer baltimore this summer seriously we are like less than two hours away from each other there is no reason why we shouldn't meet right right right or we'll go to a nationals game as painful as that might be to watch i mean if they're playing your yankees maybe that'll work yeah there we go there you go well chris it's always great having you on so thanks so much for being with me today yes my pleasure tom All right, so what did you think? Man, it's always great for me to have a conversation with Chris. Not only do we love baseball and just love to talk about that, but we have a lot of just different ministry stuff in common. So if you've never checked out Christopher's stuff before, again, definitely go to the show notes, click on his links, get his coaching. It's just a fantastic opportunity for you to learn from a real great expert. A guy who's doing student ministry, but also overseeing a lot of online stuff as well. So he's just a great person to be in touch with. But I would love to hear your thoughts on the conversation. What have you discovered about creating an online ministry team? What have been some good things, some bad things? I would love for you to share that with me. Go to Twitter, at TAPounders by Twitter handle. I would love to carry this conversation on. just share your thoughts on it or you can just email me tom at thechurch.digital i would love to talk to you a little bit more about that today all right heroes well thanks so much for joining the church digital psychic podcast as always if you enjoyed it subscribe to it this is on youtube this is on itunes spotify uh you can go to the blog and subscribe to it just go and subscribe to it and give us a rating too we'd love for you to do that but we'd love for you to stay in tune with all the things that are happening at the church digital so go to thechurch.digital today and you can get all that great content every day throughout the week. Alright Heroes, well I hope you have a great rest of your day and until next time, have a great one.