One of the things we preach is that everyone in the church should use their specific gifts and talents in the church to serve God and one another. This is a very necessary message, because God wants everyone to be involved in the ministry. And our gifts complement one another in such a way that we are all encouraged and God is glorified.
But I think we often forget that this includes ourselves as well.
I mean, sure, we preach, and we visit, and we encourage people verbally as much as we can, but sometimes we bring other passions to the table as well. And every pastor is different. Some pastors are great at administration, others are great at manual labor. Others really have an eye for aesthetics and can make the facilities inviting and beautiful.
Me, I’m pretty much a computer geek. Always have been. So it would be foolish not to use this talent in the church for God’s glory.
So I’ve been leading my church to slowly incorporate newer and better tech. We’ve come a long way, to the point that we’re more effectively using church presentation software, social media, and now, starting last Sunday, we’re video streaming our worship services live over the internet.
Pretty cool.
I don’t completely know how this is going to be received yet. We’ve been streaming just the audio from our services live for awhile now, and we usually have between 3 and 10 people listening in online (usually closer to 3). So I expect that we’ll have at least that many joining us online at first (we may have had as many as 14 join us for our first live video service, but I could be misunderstanding the stats). But I also know that video is greatly increasing on the internet, so I’m excited about the possibility of reaching a larger audience than ever because of this new capability.
But I’m also a realist, so I fully expect that we may continue to reach the 3 to 10 people who have been listening online, and that’s awesome, too. If we can minister to them better, so that they can better worship with us, and connect with us, praise God.
So whether you eat, or drink, or preach, or stream your services live online, do all to the glory of God.