November 24, 2020 • 15 mins
Jeff Hoglen opens up to pastors about staying connected. As the second wave of COVID strikes many worldwide communities, how you engage and connect is more essential than ever in reaching people and connecting them with Jesus.
Listen along for tips on tools and techniques on staying connected in a scenario that's causing a sense of isolation beyond the norm.
Listen along for tips on tools and techniques on staying connected in a scenario that's causing a sense of isolation beyond the norm.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Equipping and encouraging church planters everywhere.This is the Church Planting Today podcast with
Steve Chogrin and Jeff Hogland, Usefulconversations for those aimed at winning others into
relationship with Christ. Hey, wewant Jeff Hogland here from church Planing dot
Com. You're listening to Church PlayingToday, the podcast for churchplane dot com.
(00:25):
And we exist for current and futurechurch planners and existing leaders and those
who want to see renewal within thelocal church. And today's episode is all
about the pastor's heart. The pastor'sheart and this second round of COVID season
to be be more specific, andyou know, I just want to address
(00:47):
that real quick, you know,the feeling and the concern of a pastor
during these times. You know,we've learned a lot from the first go
around, and you know that Iknow the concerns that are the same as
they are now. We have healthconcerns, of course, we want to
keep the flock healthy. We wantto keep those we love healthy and just
(01:10):
balancing, you know, opening upthe church with the social distancing and good
old common sense, you know,wearing masks, if that's what you know,
how you feel most comfortable And thereason I phrase it that way is
because we have seen throughout North Americathere are pockets where it's very heavily increasing
(01:36):
the cases of COVID, and thenthere are some areas which we're very familiar
with, where the cases are arenot on the uptick. And so for
those folks, good old common sensewould come into play, where just wash
hands, use the alcohol that isright there in dispensaries, and wear masks
(01:57):
if that makes you feel comfortable,and just obey what the leaders of the
church would dictate. And really yougot to have a trust in them as
well, because they also are lookingout for the best interests of the people.
And so we have that health concern, and of course there's economic concerns
(02:20):
the people in our churches. Theyhave lost jobs, some are really having
to go to a part time status. Some are working from home. I
know a lot of our schools areworking on a online basis, which limits
the amount of time people can actuallygo to work, and so it's a
(02:40):
little bit difficult and it's hitting folksin the pocketbook. And so there's the
economic concern to family. There's concernsthere as well, because we've seen how
this plays out within the family dynamic, you know, with a husband and
wife and the children being in ahouse for a long period of time to
get there with no outlet, nosocial outings, that can be difficult.
(03:05):
And so I want to just kindof tell you that I understand, I
understand those feelings, and I reallyfeel for you. There are going to
be some times when we have tomake some tough decisions with regards to what
do we do opening up the churchor having it as a kind of a
(03:27):
reservation type of situation. I havesome friends that are doing that right now.
They've been blessed where they have thecapacity to still have a decent amount
of seating with the social distancing ofseats, and what they do is very
similar to what you do for amusical concert or a play. Is you
(03:52):
know, you actually reserve seats andif you have four people in your party,
then you reserve four seats and thenthey seat you accordingly. I understand
all that you know. I believethat you need to default to your context,
and so I am a firm believerthat it all boils down to context.
(04:15):
Pray, seek the Lord, listen, and obey what I really want
to get into in this short episodeis those that are am I A.
Those who are missing in action.A lot of churches have started meeting,
I believe. I think seventy fivepercent is the number right now across North
(04:38):
America. Seventy five percent are actuallymeeting in person. Again, I've heard
numbers from thirty percent all the wayup to seventy five percent of the members
are back. And if that isyou, you are a rarity. Our
local church is hovering right around thatsixty five percent, and we're considered an
(04:59):
anomaly within our area. Most churchesin this area, this region are running
somewhere between thirty and fifty percent.So with regards to those who are missing
an action, I just want toask you what are you doing to reach
them? And I know we havethe online stuff that's going on, but
are you communicating with them? Asa pastor. I know you have a
(05:24):
shepherd's heart and you want to seethe very best for them. You want
to continue the discipleship process, youwant to continue that relational aspect, and
so how are you communicating with them? Now? You know, the larger
the church, the more difficult it'sgoing to be. And so what I'm
going to encourage you to do isis communicate with every known possible way,
(05:47):
and whether that's through email, throughthat texting, through your website. You
know, we can communicate a lotby the website, and you know,
if you have a good webmaster thereto you know, do updates on the
fly and so use that to thebest of your ability. Another way is
(06:10):
through private Facebook groups. You know, there's there's a lot going on with
the with the Facebook platform right now, but you know they still have the
private groups, which is very effectivein giving information. Communicating with your church,
(06:30):
it gets a little bit weird,you know, when you're you're trying
to be all inclusive, and sopeople who may not be a member yet
but they're they've been attending your church, well you kind of need to have
their information in order to include themin that that private group. But man,
I tell you what, we havebeen able to share prayer requests,
(06:50):
we've been able to do announcements,what we've been even able just to just
to have a good time. Wedo little funny polls on there. The
last one I did was something tothe effect of I think there was nine
pictures of Christmas movies and I said, what it's your favorite Christmas movie and
everyone every movie had a number thatwas assigned to it and said give me
(07:13):
your top three, you know,and so just a way to engage.
That's another thing to think about.You know, it's not all about the
numbers right now, because it's justwe're in this weird time. So instead
of counting, as they say,butts in the seat, start considering your
engagement. How many people are engaging, whether that's in person, whether that's
(07:34):
online, in your small groups,in your private Facebook group, how many
people, how many unique visitors ormembers or engagements are there in a given
week. And that's a metric thatyou can do your very best to track,
(07:55):
all right, And so communicating email, texts, website, private Facebook,
book groups. If you have anyother ideas, hey mention them down
here in the comments section. Wereally want to learn from one another.
This is our first and second apocalypse, right, and so we are gleaning
from one another. You know,last week I gave an update regarding why
(08:18):
we have not been doing our weeklypodcast, and quite frankly, we just
didn't want to be you know thoseguys that are saying, hey, here's
three steps how to navigate the apocalypsecalled COVID nineteen. Right, we wanted
to give information that was useful.And you know, here we are so
many months into it. We've learneda lot of things, but we're continuously
(08:41):
learning things. And you know,the second go around, I've had friends
from all parts of North America andthey are giving me different, different types
of feedback and so it's very interesting. So we want to learn from one
another, guys. But the keyhere in my heart is to communicate,
communicating every way possible. Well,I want to give you some resources or
(09:07):
suggest some resources for those who areneeding some type of effective communication. So
this first one is communication within yourteam and whether that is your staff or
whether that is your volunteers. Itcan all be done on the platform called
Microsoft Teams. And for some ofyou guys, you've been using Microsoft Teams,
(09:31):
but did you know that you canbreak those down into various groups and
you can give permissions to the variousgroups who who can see what's going on.
If you have a certain task thatneeds to be done, say you're
doing a premiere video and so,but you have a couple of different folks
(09:52):
that are contributing to that project.Well, through the teams, you can
actually monitor or who's doing what andwhere they are. You can even set
up trailer boards off of that.But you know, if we can use
one platform, it's better, youknow, just instead of spreading out over
(10:13):
several different platforms, you know,try to find one that can do the
majority of your required items. SoMicrosoft Teams that's one for small groups,
or just some type of like membershipclasses online. You may want to consider
an app called b live that isa Chrome based app. What it does
(10:37):
it attaches to your Facebook page.You can do that on your private group
page, or you can do thaton your public church page. And it's
called b Live. And what itdoes is you can kind of set it
up. You can have your yourlogos in place, you can have your
countdown, you can have your variouspoints much like a PowerPoint presentation in the
(11:01):
queue, and then as you're speaking, you just click on the items that
you want. And so for Biblestudy, I've found this to be very
helpful. And again that's called beLive. And another one is right Now
Media. This is something that wehad many years ago when it was still
in the beta stage, and sincethen they have added so many more resources.
(11:26):
I believe they have over twenty fivethousand resources now, so small groups.
They have pastors conferences, leadership conferences, so many resources, even cartoons.
And what's good about even the cartoonsis they have these sections where you
can you can download coloring sheets,you can family discussions and you know,
(11:52):
just questions that spur on some goodconversation. Right now, Media also has
a small group option and it's prettyneat. You know, it's something that
Zoom, to my knowledge, Zoomis not able to do, and that
is you're watching the same small groupcurriculum all at the same time in real
(12:15):
time, and then you have thedifferent people that are participating in the small
group also on the screen, andso you know, it's there's something special
about that where you're watching it together. You might not be in the same
room, but you are watching ittogether and you're seeing one another and so
it's the next best thing to beingtogether live. And so again that's called
(12:39):
right now media. I am notan affiliate of any of these folks,
and so I'm not making any moneyon I'm just saying these are some resources
that I use personally. And thenof course I've already mentioned Zoom, but
Zoom is one of those platforms thatreally blew up during the first round of
COVID nineteen, and you know,we still use it. I'm actually recording
(13:01):
this podcast using Zoom and so ithas some neat features on there where you
know, it records your your video, but also there's there's a recording of
the audio and so good for variouspurposes. You know, we've heard of
some people getting zoom fatigue. Youknow, I totally get that. But
(13:22):
still it is a good platform andit still has many uses. And the
good thing about it is people havegotten used to it. You know,
they know how to sign in.You know, it serves a very valid
purpose. And so anyways, guys, I am just encouraging all the pastors
and the church leaders and from fromchurch planners to existing pastors, continue reaching
(13:48):
out to your folks and in thebest ways possible. You know, every
area will have a best practice.Every region will have a best practice,
and some folks are more you'll knowyour content. If you have an older
congregation, maybe maybe that the digitalworld isn't the way to go, and
maybe you just need to get onthe phone and talk to them and ask
(14:11):
them. You know, how canyou pray for them and just encourage them
along the way. Guys, youknow, with the second round happening,
it's it's perplexing. Man, it'stroubling, and we don't know what the
future holds, but we do knowthe one who holds our future. Amen.
And so guys, be encouraged thatthis too will end and we just
(14:37):
need to persevere and we just needto do our very best. And so
I know your hearts as a asa fellow pastor, I know your heart
is to help, your heart isto communicate, your heartest to bring clarity,
and your hardest to speak life intoyour congregation. And so until next
time, guys, just please knowthat I am praying for I believe in
(15:01):
what you're doing is making a difference, and is Steve my partner in crime.
Steve Shogrin would say, keep onkeeping on and we will see you
next time. On Church Planning Today, the podcast for church planning dot com.
You've been listening to the Church PlantingToday podcast with Steve Chogrin and Jeff
Pokland. Be sure to share andsubscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Connect
(15:24):
for free outreach articles, ideas,and resources at kindness dot com and church
planting dot com
Equipping and encouraging church planters everywhere.This is the Church Planting Today podcast with
Steve Chogrin and Jeff Hogland, Usefulconversations for those aimed at winning others into
relationship with Christ. Hey, wewant Jeff Hogland here from church Planing dot
Com. You're listening to Church PlayingToday, the podcast for churchplane dot com.
(00:25):
And we exist for current and futurechurch planners and existing leaders and those
who want to see renewal within thelocal church. And today's episode is all
about the pastor's heart. The pastor'sheart and this second round of COVID season
to be be more specific, andyou know, I just want to address
(00:47):
that real quick, you know,the feeling and the concern of a pastor
during these times. You know,we've learned a lot from the first go
around, and you know that Iknow the concerns that are the same as
they are now. We have healthconcerns, of course, we want to
keep the flock healthy. We wantto keep those we love healthy and just
(01:10):
balancing, you know, opening upthe church with the social distancing and good
old common sense, you know,wearing masks, if that's what you know,
how you feel most comfortable And thereason I phrase it that way is
because we have seen throughout North Americathere are pockets where it's very heavily increasing
(01:36):
the cases of COVID, and thenthere are some areas which we're very familiar
with, where the cases are arenot on the uptick. And so for
those folks, good old common sensewould come into play, where just wash
hands, use the alcohol that isright there in dispensaries, and wear masks
(01:57):
if that makes you feel comfortable,and just obey what the leaders of the
church would dictate. And really yougot to have a trust in them as
well, because they also are lookingout for the best interests of the people.
And so we have that health concern, and of course there's economic concerns
(02:20):
the people in our churches. Theyhave lost jobs, some are really having
to go to a part time status. Some are working from home. I
know a lot of our schools areworking on a online basis, which limits
the amount of time people can actuallygo to work, and so it's a
(02:40):
little bit difficult and it's hitting folksin the pocketbook. And so there's the
economic concern to family. There's concernsthere as well, because we've seen how
this plays out within the family dynamic, you know, with a husband and
wife and the children being in ahouse for a long period of time to
get there with no outlet, nosocial outings, that can be difficult.
(03:05):
And so I want to just kindof tell you that I understand, I
understand those feelings, and I reallyfeel for you. There are going to
be some times when we have tomake some tough decisions with regards to what
do we do opening up the churchor having it as a kind of a
(03:27):
reservation type of situation. I havesome friends that are doing that right now.
They've been blessed where they have thecapacity to still have a decent amount
of seating with the social distancing ofseats, and what they do is very
similar to what you do for amusical concert or a play. Is you
(03:52):
know, you actually reserve seats andif you have four people in your party,
then you reserve four seats and thenthey seat you accordingly. I understand
all that you know. I believethat you need to default to your context,
and so I am a firm believerthat it all boils down to context.
(04:15):
Pray, seek the Lord, listen, and obey what I really want
to get into in this short episodeis those that are am I A.
Those who are missing in action.A lot of churches have started meeting,
I believe. I think seventy fivepercent is the number right now across North
(04:38):
America. Seventy five percent are actuallymeeting in person. Again, I've heard
numbers from thirty percent all the wayup to seventy five percent of the members
are back. And if that isyou, you are a rarity. Our
local church is hovering right around thatsixty five percent, and we're considered an
(04:59):
anomaly within our area. Most churchesin this area, this region are running
somewhere between thirty and fifty percent.So with regards to those who are missing
an action, I just want toask you what are you doing to reach
them? And I know we havethe online stuff that's going on, but
are you communicating with them? Asa pastor. I know you have a
(05:24):
shepherd's heart and you want to seethe very best for them. You want
to continue the discipleship process, youwant to continue that relational aspect, and
so how are you communicating with them? Now? You know, the larger
the church, the more difficult it'sgoing to be. And so what I'm
going to encourage you to do isis communicate with every known possible way,
(05:47):
and whether that's through email, throughthat texting, through your website. You
know, we can communicate a lotby the website, and you know,
if you have a good webmaster thereto you know, do updates on the
fly and so use that to thebest of your ability. Another way is
(06:10):
through private Facebook groups. You know, there's there's a lot going on with
the with the Facebook platform right now, but you know they still have the
private groups, which is very effectivein giving information. Communicating with your church,
(06:30):
it gets a little bit weird,you know, when you're you're trying
to be all inclusive, and sopeople who may not be a member yet
but they're they've been attending your church, well you kind of need to have
their information in order to include themin that that private group. But man,
I tell you what, we havebeen able to share prayer requests,
(06:50):
we've been able to do announcements,what we've been even able just to just
to have a good time. Wedo little funny polls on there. The
last one I did was something tothe effect of I think there was nine
pictures of Christmas movies and I said, what it's your favorite Christmas movie and
everyone every movie had a number thatwas assigned to it and said give me
(07:13):
your top three, you know,and so just a way to engage.
That's another thing to think about.You know, it's not all about the
numbers right now, because it's justwe're in this weird time. So instead
of counting, as they say,butts in the seat, start considering your
engagement. How many people are engaging, whether that's in person, whether that's
(07:34):
online, in your small groups,in your private Facebook group, how many
people, how many unique visitors ormembers or engagements are there in a given
week. And that's a metric thatyou can do your very best to track,
(07:55):
all right, And so communicating email, texts, website, private Facebook,
book groups. If you have anyother ideas, hey mention them down
here in the comments section. Wereally want to learn from one another.
This is our first and second apocalypse, right, and so we are gleaning
from one another. You know,last week I gave an update regarding why
(08:18):
we have not been doing our weeklypodcast, and quite frankly, we just
didn't want to be you know thoseguys that are saying, hey, here's
three steps how to navigate the apocalypsecalled COVID nineteen. Right, we wanted
to give information that was useful.And you know, here we are so
many months into it. We've learneda lot of things, but we're continuously
(08:41):
learning things. And you know,the second go around, I've had friends
from all parts of North America andthey are giving me different, different types
of feedback and so it's very interesting. So we want to learn from one
another, guys. But the keyhere in my heart is to communicate,
communicating every way possible. Well,I want to give you some resources or
(09:07):
suggest some resources for those who areneeding some type of effective communication. So
this first one is communication within yourteam and whether that is your staff or
whether that is your volunteers. Itcan all be done on the platform called
Microsoft Teams. And for some ofyou guys, you've been using Microsoft Teams,
(09:31):
but did you know that you canbreak those down into various groups and
you can give permissions to the variousgroups who who can see what's going on.
If you have a certain task thatneeds to be done, say you're
doing a premiere video and so,but you have a couple of different folks
(09:52):
that are contributing to that project.Well, through the teams, you can
actually monitor or who's doing what andwhere they are. You can even set
up trailer boards off of that.But you know, if we can use
one platform, it's better, youknow, just instead of spreading out over
(10:13):
several different platforms, you know,try to find one that can do the
majority of your required items. SoMicrosoft Teams that's one for small groups,
or just some type of like membershipclasses online. You may want to consider
an app called b live that isa Chrome based app. What it does
(10:37):
it attaches to your Facebook page.You can do that on your private group
page, or you can do thaton your public church page. And it's
called b Live. And what itdoes is you can kind of set it
up. You can have your yourlogos in place, you can have your
countdown, you can have your variouspoints much like a PowerPoint presentation in the
(11:01):
queue, and then as you're speaking, you just click on the items that
you want. And so for Biblestudy, I've found this to be very
helpful. And again that's called beLive. And another one is right Now
Media. This is something that wehad many years ago when it was still
in the beta stage, and sincethen they have added so many more resources.
(11:26):
I believe they have over twenty fivethousand resources now, so small groups.
They have pastors conferences, leadership conferences, so many resources, even cartoons.
And what's good about even the cartoonsis they have these sections where you
can you can download coloring sheets,you can family discussions and you know,
(11:52):
just questions that spur on some goodconversation. Right now, Media also has
a small group option and it's prettyneat. You know, it's something that
Zoom, to my knowledge, Zoomis not able to do, and that
is you're watching the same small groupcurriculum all at the same time in real
(12:15):
time, and then you have thedifferent people that are participating in the small
group also on the screen, andso you know, it's there's something special
about that where you're watching it together. You might not be in the same
room, but you are watching ittogether and you're seeing one another and so
it's the next best thing to beingtogether live. And so again that's called
(12:39):
right now media. I am notan affiliate of any of these folks,
and so I'm not making any moneyon I'm just saying these are some resources
that I use personally. And thenof course I've already mentioned Zoom, but
Zoom is one of those platforms thatreally blew up during the first round of
COVID nineteen, and you know,we still use it. I'm actually recording
(13:01):
this podcast using Zoom and so ithas some neat features on there where you
know, it records your your video, but also there's there's a recording of
the audio and so good for variouspurposes. You know, we've heard of
some people getting zoom fatigue. Youknow, I totally get that. But
(13:22):
still it is a good platform andit still has many uses. And the
good thing about it is people havegotten used to it. You know,
they know how to sign in.You know, it serves a very valid
purpose. And so anyways, guys, I am just encouraging all the pastors
and the church leaders and from fromchurch planners to existing pastors, continue reaching
(13:48):
out to your folks and in thebest ways possible. You know, every
area will have a best practice.Every region will have a best practice,
and some folks are more you'll knowyour content. If you have an older
congregation, maybe maybe that the digitalworld isn't the way to go, and
maybe you just need to get onthe phone and talk to them and ask
(14:11):
them. You know, how canyou pray for them and just encourage them
along the way. Guys, youknow, with the second round happening,
it's it's perplexing. Man, it'stroubling, and we don't know what the
future holds, but we do knowthe one who holds our future. Amen.
And so guys, be encouraged thatthis too will end and we just
(14:37):
need to persevere and we just needto do our very best. And so
I know your hearts as a asa fellow pastor, I know your heart
is to help, your heart isto communicate, your heartest to bring clarity,
and your hardest to speak life intoyour congregation. And so until next
time, guys, just please knowthat I am praying for I believe in
(15:01):
what you're doing is making a difference, and is Steve my partner in crime.
Steve Shogrin would say, keep onkeeping on and we will see you
next time. On Church Planning Today, the podcast for church planning dot com.
You've been listening to the Church PlantingToday podcast with Steve Chogrin and Jeff
Pokland. Be sure to share andsubscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Connect
(15:24):
for free outreach articles, ideas,and resources at kindness dot com and church
planting dot com
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