When COVID-19 hit, we had two and a half days to move the entire church experience online. That’s five services each Sunday. Of those five services, only one had ever fully made it online and two of them had never been put online in any capacity. What’s more, it was about trying to get the community that people experience on a Sunday morning online. In those two and a half days, we got the five services online, and since March 15, we have done what we can to create a sense of community online while improving our service quality.
My role in all of this has been to run the website (including our COVID-19 response page), manage our social media feeds (delegating certain things to either free up my time or because other’s are better suited to run point with that project), cut together the two kids’ services using a mix of provided curriculum and our footage, and produce the hour long, adult service each week with my director of photography and worship pastor.
Oh, and all this while Easter and Mother’s Day – the second and third highest attended days of the year – were barreling down upon us.
The result has been one of the best feeds in our county, fairly well sustained numbers from our physical meetings, and maintained financial donations.
Main Service | Easter | Finances
Main Service
This involves working with department heads and volunteers, scheduling talent, writing scripts, setting up lighting and sets, getting a live studio audience for the message, filming, editing, and posting it not just our website, but making sure the live stream is ready to go.
There are four distinct pieces of this service:
The MC (who opens the service, informs people as to changes or encourage them to fill out our connect cards, and closes the service)
The Music
The Message (or Featured Speaker)
The Wrap Up
Full samples:
For more, visit the Crossroads website.
Easter
Easter is consistently the second biggest day of the year, so we pull out practically all the stops to make it special. In addition to our service which had two music specials (see below), we also hosted a number of Zoom meetings, live music, and pre-recorded talks to increase a sense of community during this special time.
Aside from a Facebook Event, we had social media graphics made for our feeds and stories. (These were made by my intern based on my initial design.) We also ran paid Facebook and Instagram ads.
I also produced a video of our pastor announcing that, yes, we were in fact going to be doing Easter virtually.
Prior to Easter Sunday, we had eight days of community building events that we promoted through social media, and some of which were hosted live on Facebook or Instagram.
On Easter Sunday, in addition to our normal service, we had two musical specials.
The full service additionally included music by our student band and multiple hosts.
It’s difficult to gauge exactly how many people “attended” Easter this year. On a normal year, we have anywhere from 1,000 – 1,400 in attendance. This year, it was estimated at least 1,600 people watched online on that day, and very likely over 2,000 by the time the week was over.
Finances
One of our main concerns as a non-profit has been finances. As the lead marketer, part of the burden has been placed on me to help communicate that. Each week, that’s meant communicating to the viewers not only that they can give online (or by check still), but that we are reliant upon that giving. Additionally, we’ve made it easier to give on our website, even including a PDF on how to set up your giving account.
Thanks to these efforts, we’ve been able to do not just better than anticipated, but generally comparable to previous years. These are the amounts for the period in and around COVID-19. These represent the budgeted money vs. the donated money broken up by month and then again by year.
Despite the economic uncertainty, donations have still been coming in at a reasonable rate. Because of that, some money stashed away from a capital campaign for times just like this, and a government loan, the church has still been able to employ people, provide church service, and still keep our food pantry open (albeit, now as a drive-thru).
This is currently an ongoing project for me as we are still in the midst of doing church online.
Sammy Rey 