Category: Preaching

Posted in Boundaries, Church Growth & Vitality, External Relations, Preaching, Self-Care Tagged with

12 min 58 s

Rev. Dawn Adams

Tips for making innovation and experimentation work for a small church;

Responding innovatively to the different church participation behaviors of younger generations;

Balancing it all: engaging the congregation while also maintaining healthy boundaries;

Examples of successful collaboration with other clergy for worship, Advent, Lent, that lessen one’s work load; Collaboration should make things easier not harder;

Listen or Read Now!
Posted in Administration, Church Growth & Vitality, Evangelism, External Relations, Faith Formation, Leadership Development, Mission and Vision, Preaching, Technology Tagged with

11 min 57s

Creating a clear, simple statement of mission or purpose for a congregation is no easy feat, and the envy of every pastor I know is that their parishioners embrace it so well that they can share it by heart in their own words in a variety of situations.

In this episode titled, “How We Developed a Communication Plan to Clarify Our Congregation’s Mission,” small church pastor Rev. Tom Hathaway shares how they discovered three deeply resonant traits of the congregation and used them to guide ministry messaging both externally and internally in compelling and efficient ways.

How an external observer helped us see 3 fundamental traits of our congregational culture that we didn’t see ourselves;

How we use these 3 deeply resonant missional traits to guide where and how we repurpose ideas in sermons and messaging; If an idea really resonates, use it again and again to embed it.

Listen or Read Now!
Posted in Administration, Church Growth & Vitality, Evangelism, External Relations, Leadership Development, Preaching, Staff, Technology Tagged with

10 min 54s

Is creating content to communicate about lots of different things around your ministry taking up too much energy? Do you wish you had more administrative support? If so, this podcast titled, “Using AI in Church – How It Lightens My Administrative Load,” is for you. Reverend Tom Hathaway, a solo pastor with no administrative staff support, shares his innovative use of ChatGBT to streamline church administrative tasks such as creating sermon teasers, event descriptions and Bible reading plans, thereby helping him to work more efficiently and stay focused on what he uniquely can do and does best.

As a solo pastor with no administrative support, Tom finds it inefficient to spend time on tasks like event descriptions that have limited readership;

Tom has outsourced these tasks to ChatGPT, which can generate creative and engaging content quickly and efficiently;

Practical Examples of AI Use in Church Administration;

He describes using ChatGPT to create sermon teasers, event descriptions, and Bible reading plans, which used to be time-consuming tasks;

The use of ChatGPT allows Tom to concentrate on preparing rich sermons and other meaningful church activities; Impact of AI on Church Leadership and Congregation.

Listen or Read Now!