Church Online Platform is Live

I’m very excited to let you know…

Church Online Platform has officially launched!

This is the same technology that makes Church Online happen at LifeChurch.tv. What we’re making available to other churches for free is identical to what we’re using internally.

We’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long time. Ever since the early days of Church Online (or the Internet Campus as we called it back then), one of the most frequent questions we received was, “How can we develop something similar?”

Through the partnership of a handful of like-minded churches, we were able to start over from square one and develop a solution that churches everywhere could use to launch an online ministry.

I can’t wait to see how different churches use their unique gifts, calling, and personality to reach millions of people around the world with the Gospel.

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Free Platform Helps Any Church Launch an Online Ministry

One of the most common questions we receive about Church Online is, “how can I start something similar at my church?” That’s why I’m excited to share this news about the Church Online Platform…

If you’d like to stay in the loop as we near the launch date of January 9, just enter your email address at ChurchOnline.org. And if you know churches who might be interested, please share this post with them!

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Free Resource for Online Ministry

A good friend of mine, Dana Byers, has put together a great free ebook to help ministries that are considering or wanting to learn more about online ministry. Dana and her husband, Chris, have volunteered and served in several capacities on our team and have a non-profit ministry called BlueDoor.tv.

The Art of Online Ministry offers helpful details like:

• Developing content for online experiences
• Working with volunteers
• Spreading the word about your online ministry
• Equipment and resource recommendations
• And lots more…

I encourage you to check it out!

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Online All Staff Meeting

We had our first online “All Staff Meeting” this week. Several people were asking how we did it, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts.

HOW? We used our church online platform at www.churchonline.org.

WHY? Since our staff is spread out, bringing them together is costly, time consuming, and challenging. We hoped an online event would provide us with the opportunity to communicate, inspire and motivate.

In addition to simply receiving information, the staff had the additional benefit of talking to each other through the online chat.

SURPRISES: None of us had any idea how much fun we’d have. I was laughing out loud much of the time at the hilarious chatting. The staff was buzzing with excitement the day after the meeting.

When we asked people to get serious, they did quickly. The corporate worship was powerful and the prayer time was deeply moving.

We will continue to meet together in person and do an online event once or twice a year when it makes sense. Here is a short clip from the meeting.

If any staff members would like to add some thoughts about your experience, please do.

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The Porn Event

Later this month, we’re offering an online event that has the potential to help thousands of individuals around the world who are struggling with pornography. From May 23-28, we’re partnering with XXXChurch.com to host ThePornEvent.com, a 25-minute interactive experience where people can learn more about the effect porn has on our lives and relationships.

ThePornEvent.com is open to people everywhere, so feel free to leverage it to help individuals at your church. Expect a non-threatening environment featuring stories, helpful answers, and an open conversation with people who’ve traveled a similar path. ThePornEvent.com is for anyone who is interested in what it looks like to live a life beyond pornography.

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Easter at LifeChurch.tv

Yesterday was a phenomenal day to be in ministry, wasn’t it? I saw many of you posting tweets, updates, and pictures about packed out Easter services, baptisms, and salvations at your churches. It was awesome to see Kingdom wins all over the world!

To celebrate along with you, I want to share a bit about what God did at LifeChurch.tv yesterday. We launched a new campus in Yukon, Oklahoma, and it turned out to be our biggest yet. Even the overflow seating area was standing room only!

Our Network churches also experienced great momentum with huge numbers of baptisms, attendance doubling, and successful launches.

Across the board, our locations were seeing record-setting attendance numbers, and more than 1,000 people gave their lives to Christ—and that’s not  including the Easter services still continuing all week long at Church Online.

We’re so thankful to the servant leaders throughout the church who made this all possible by volunteering and inviting their friends. We’re humbled to see God moving like this and excited about the opportunities for ministry that will follow.

I’d love to hear more about what happened at your churches this Easter. What are you celebrating?

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India: Urban Youth

While many of us are accustomed to hearing about extreme poverty in India, there’s a growing demographic that you might not be as familiar with: the middle class urban youth. This is a group that’s globally connected. They’re not only being influenced by input from around the world, they are influencing and adding to that input as well.

These are the people it’s possible to reach right now using media and technology. In the past, you might have heard me say, “There are more people alive today than at any other point in human history, and they are more connected now than at any time in the past.” India is at the very center of that…both from a population standpoint, and in terms of being globally connected.

We have an incredible opportunity in front of us to reach this population, but we’ll need to move beyond conventional methods. That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about India being the country with the largest attendance at Church Online. With just a few clicks, these globally connected youth can experience a message of hope and salvation from across the world.

Several churches have adopted experiences at Church Online as an online mission project. We’re in the process of adding more experiences, so if you’re interested in learning more about this opportunity check out this post from Church Online.

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Joel A’Bell from Hillsong - 1

We were blessed to have Joel A’Bell, Lead Pastor under Hillsong Church’s Senior Pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston, with us last week all the way from Australia.

In this session, we discussed some new things that God is doing at Hillsong and talked about developing a strong culture of worship.

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