Bank Online Bill Pay

Almost all banks offer online bill pay to their customers. This service includes the ability to have that bank mail a check to anyone, including their church. These can be one time payments, or recurring payments. These checks are deposited just like any other check, and do not require any fees from the recipient.

Everything Else

All other services have fees attached in multiple ways: monthly fees, per transaction fee, percent of transaction fees. The services with monthly fees usually have lower transaction fees, so the more giving units you have, the more you will save with a monthly fee. Some services allow the giver to “cover the fee” for their transaction so that the church will receive the entire donation.

To use these services the church and the giver will need to set up an account with the service. The church will have an online dashboard where they can track giving and givers. Some of these services integrate with Church Management Systems.

Right now, Generosity by Lifeway is offering their service with only the credit card processing fees.

An overview of seven other options, as well as non ministry specific options, is available here. Be sure to double check current rates before signing up with one of these platforms.

Live vs Pre-recorded

The first big decision you need to make is whether you will be publishing your videos live or pre-recorded.

Pre-recorded videos offer the opportunity to edit for content, quality and length. Obviously, you can also record them at any time. That would allow greater flexibility for those participating in the service to record their contribution when it is convenient. Pre-recordings also don’t depend on good internet connectivity to get out to your congregation. You can record them whenever, wherever and then upload them to a streaming platform whenever and wherever. You can also be sure that the image and audio quality you record in are delivered to your end users.

Live video does require a stable internet connection for the duration of the broadcast. Most internet service providers have a much smaller upload speed than download speed. That means that even if you have a great camera and great microphone, it is likely that the people watching aren’t experiencing that same quality. Technical difficulties during the broadcast will also be experienced by the watchers.

Streaming Platforms

Now you need to choose a streaming platform. A streaming platform is just the website that people are going to visit to watch your videos. There are countless options. I am going to focus on the big two: Facebook and YouTube. Both have options for Live and Pre-recorded videos with comparable features that allow some interaction between people watching together.

The major advantage and disadvantage both belong to Facebook. In order to participate in a Facebook video stream a user must have a Facebook account. While most people do, many people do not, and will not create one for various reasons. However, unlike YouTube, Facebook can broaden your video’s reach to the Friends of those watching your service.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live allows people to visit your church’s Facebook Page and watch your live stream. While watching they can chat with others that are watching as well as provide feedback through the usual Facebook “like” system. Your stream will show up in the Newsfeed of many people who follow your page, as well as many of their Friends’ Newsfeeds. Once your live stream is complete, the video and the audience interactions is archived on your Facebook Page.

YouTube Live

YouTube Live allows people to visit your church’s YouTube channel and watch your live stream. While watching they can chat with others that are watching. YouTube only allows users and channels to live stream that have “verified” channels. This can be done easily with a text message verification code, but should be done at least 24 hours before you intend to go live, as YouTube must enable this feature. Once your live stream is complete, the video is archived on your YouTube channel.

Facebook Watch Party (Pre-recorded Video)

A Facebook Watch Party allows a Facebook Page to create a “Watch Party” that begins at a certain time and streams a video, or videos, in a specific order to the watchers. All of those in the watch party can comment and “Like” as they do on any other Facebook content. The Watch Party videos can be uploaded to Facebook ahead of time but not published until the time of the Watch Party. At the time of the Watch Party, the videos can be published, and the Watch Party started to include those videos.

YouTube Premieres (Pre-recorded Video)

A YouTube Premiere creates a date, time and location (via a web address) for people to come together to watch a pre-recorded video on YouTube. At the appointed time, the video begins to play and audience members can interact via a chat feature.

Equipment Needed

For the most part you can do this with your smart phone with results of reasonable quality. The notable exception is that you cannot live stream from your YouTube channel via your mobile device if you do not have at least 1000 subscribers. However, you can still use your laptop or computer webcam. I found this article with suggestions on equipment for live streaming. The same recommendations would stand for pre-recording videos.

Feb 7, 2020

Glenn and Brad discuss the new framework articles he’s written for the association and why they are important to support the mission of pastoral ministry. Take a few minutes to listen to “The 5 C’s” of Framework.

Podcast Link

Read the transcript below:

Glenn: Welcome to Heart of Kansas Southern Baptist Association podcast. This is February the fifth and we’re talking today about my framework articles. I intend for those articles to help you and your ministry. I’m Glenn Davis. I’m the associational mission strategist for heart of Kansas. And with me today is Brad Simmons.
Brad is a church planting catalyst with the North American mission board. Brad, we’re glad you’re here.
Brad: I’m happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. I also hope you’ve had the chance to visit the new website for the heart of Kansas, HOKsba.org We’re still making some improvements to it, but it looks a lot better than before.
Got some new content, including these framework articles that we’ll be posting soon. Hopefully it’ll be a good resource for you. You’ll find this podcast on there too.
Glenn: So, I am excited about this. I started writing these framework articles, I look back, it was August of 2018 so it’s been almost a year and a half.
And today with the redesign of our website, I want to kind of go back and rethink about why we’re doing framework articles, why I write these. I kno, and you guys know as well that the first thing every organization does is it forgets what it’s supposed to be doing. We tend to all experience missional drift.
And I want to try to guard against that.
Brad: So what’s the mission of framework?
Glenn: Well, when I started writing framework, I intended to try to help pastors with their pastoral ministry thinking about five areas that I think are important for all of us as pastors to live our life. And to do our ministry well.
And so I’ve tried to stay true to that. I’m sure I’ve drifted some, but I’ve tried to stay true to that and to address these five areas, the first of these areas is character. We talk about that a lot, and character is really foundational for every person’s ministry. That’s why the New Testament has so much to say, and his description of elders and deacons.
Regarding character traits. We know that character is just, it’s what keeps us from going in the gutter. If we have giftedness or competencies without character, we tend to just gather a bigger group of people before it all implodes. So character is one of those five areas.
The second area I’ve tried to write about is commitment. I know ministry is hard and, uh, staying at the task over time is. It’s difficult. Brad, you work with church planters. How do you encourage them in this area of commitment?
Brad: Yeah. With church planters, they tend to be very entrepreneur, entrepreneurial guys, and they like to start new things. And so it can often be a challenge once the church has started to stay committed to the mission there.
And so just always encouraging them to remember that the ministry of a pasture is a marathon, not a sprint, and to remember that God has called you to this. And you’ve gathered these people, his people, for the purpose of pastoring them and leading them and to a greater relationship with God. And that God’s with them in this. So even when it’s hard to remember back to the time when they felt strongest the calling of God to do what they’ve been called to do.
Glenn: You know, I was just reading today, I think it was a Tom Reiner article about not just the peaks and the valleys of ministry, but the plateaus. Sometimes there’s a long season of ministry when we’re just kind of on the plateau. I think in those times, just staying committed to the ministry is something we have to just keep going back to our calling. So, for whether you’re a planter or a pastor or in some other place in ministry, this calling to put our hands to the plow and not look back is, a high calling.
A third area that I’ve talked about is competency. And by that I’m talking about our ability, the giftedness that God gives those he calls to ministry. These are not things that we conjure up ourselves any more than we conjure up our own calling. But God gifts us. And certainly one of the gifts that he gives to those who are going to serve in the elder or the pastor role has to be word gifts. So by that I mean the ability to look at the word of God, to understand what the word of God is saying, and then to be able to communicate that in a way that’s helpful for people. In the framework articles, I want to encourage us all to continue to grow in our skill development. Whether that’s, preaching or teaching or better understanding the word or other skills. It’s a competency that is important.
And community. Number four is community. As pastors or planters, not being involved in community is easy because we get so busy. Brad, how do you keep planters? How successful do you think you are at keeping planters involved in community, and what would you say to them about that?
Brad: Well, they are busy guys, just like most pastors. And so, it’s hard sometimes to get them to gather together. Many of them have small groups that they’re a part of in their church, and some small relationships, or groups with other planters or pastors. But I think the pastor clusters or pasture cohorts that we have here at Heart of Kansas are good opportunities for planters and pastors to spend time with each other and to get some community with other guys who have similar lives and situations that they’re going through.
Glenn: You know, we’ve got four pastor cohorts growing going right now. I’m very thankful for guys who were involved in that. We have one that meets in the evening for men who are working full time jobs and they’re bi-vocational in their ministry or co-vocational in their ministry. And so we have that one and we have three that meet during the day time.
And if anyone, any of the pastors or planters or staff members have an interest in being a part of one of the cohorts I’d be glad to talk with you about that so you can reach out to me to do that.
The fifth ‘C’ that I want to write about is content. And when I’m thinking about content, I’m thinking about, obviously I have to have a C, so I can have the five CS, we want them all to be alliterated I suppose.
When I’m thinking about content, I’m thinking about the importance for all of us to be lifelong learners. I have been in full time Christian ministry since 1979 so it’s been a long time, but I know that I still have to keep learning. We have to all be lifelong learners. It seems like after you’ve been in ministry for 20 years or so it’s easy for us to think we know enough and we’ve learned enough and we can rest on our past achievements or our past knowledge. And I think that’s not true. If we’re going to be effective as ministers, as pastors, we have to keep learning. But I also think in regard to framework articles, when I write framework articles about content, those may be the most challenging to write and probably the most challenging to read because you take a look at that article and you realize, I’m not going to be able to read this, scan this quickly and understand what it’s talking about.
And so it’s easy for you to click delete and move onto the next email. I guess I want to today just try to encourage the pastors and others who are reading these to give attention to those emails even when they deal with content. Because my hope is there that we’re going to talk about and learn together content and principals.
Things that will help us to better understand not only what we’re supposed to do, but maybe the ‘why’ behind the what. That’s really important. It’s easy for us to skip that, but I think it’s important. We must keep learning if we’re going to lead well and challenge our congregations and those who are following us to lead well.
So those are the five ‘Cs’ that I’ve tried to stay true to the five areas of pastoral ministry. I’ve tried to stay true to and framework and I wanna just kind of refocus on that as we think about going forward. Brad, what else would you say today?
Brad: These are all important ‘Cs’ that you’ve put together here. And I think these emails will be very helpful and hopefully along with the podcasts and other content that heart of Kansas will be putting out, and be helpful to our pastors and churches as they complete the great commission.
Glenn: All right, well, thank you guys for listening today. Just in closing framework really is intended as an email that I send out every week.
It’s intended to be short enough for you to read quickly and yet have enough substance to make it worth your time. So I hope you all find them helpful. If you have thoughts or ideas for future articles or ways we could make this better and more helpful for you, please be sure and let me know.
Thanks again for listening. May the Lord bless your ministry.

The Heart of Kansas Southern Baptist Association (HOKSBA) will be holding an On Mission Celebration October 1 – 3, 2016 here in Wichita.  The events of this weekend will provide multiple opportunities for individual interaction with IMB, NAMB, and KNCSB missionaries, with the goal of helping the participants to personalize their commitment to missions and to increase the churches’ efforts in support of missions.

“But you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8, ESV

HOW YOUR CHURCH CAN BECOME INVOLVED

In order to provide enough missionaries to speak in multiple
churches, it is necessary to begin now to get commitments from the churches of the Association who would like to participate in the On Mission Celebration.

This On Missions Celebration was recommended by the Associational Missions Development Council in 2014 and was placed in the budget.  The Association has $10,000 set aside for this event.  These funds will be used to cover the bulk of these expenses.  Each church will be asked to assist by taking a love offering to be given to the association and then shared equally among the missions speakers at the conclusion of the OMC.  Churches will also be invited to host the missions speakers in
various ways if they would like.

A representative of the On Missions Celebration Team will contact each church.  Responses from each church should be given to your OMC Team Member or the HOKSBA Office by March 15 concerning your decision.

• We have life because God desires a relationship with His people.  God so loved the world that He gave His Son to be our Savior.

• We enjoy life as we live in this relationship, so we sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” Joy only comes with Jesus.

• We share life as we live in relationship with one another.  The Lord intends that we live in relationship with Him, and in relationship with one another.

Once a year HOKSBA hosts the pastors, staff and spouses of churches from across our association for the Christmas Banquet at Metropolitan Baptist Church.  It is a night of fun and fellowship where these who serve and give themselves away throughout the year are honored and served.

Once again this year, my heart was full as I watched God’s chosen servants enjoy relationships with one another.

As we near the end of the year, it is a good time to evaluate tasks accomplished and goals achieved. But most important by Jesus standard is loving God and loving others.

In the business of the season, don’t miss what matters most.

Highlights of the Pastor’s Christmas Banquet this year:

• Abraham’s apology for no Christmas Greeting on our red cups.
• Beautiful singing & carols led by Keith Kelley & the Kelley Family Singers.
• Cedar Pointe walking away with most of the door prizes… again.
• The reminder that (Immanuel) God is with us, even in hard times.
• And good food shared with good friends.

“Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!”

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year,

But what is happening in the church?  And what is happening among the churches of HOKSBA?

Earlier this month, I gathered with a group of African refugees who met to worship for the first time.  John Ronel is an African man who now lives in Wichita and is working to establish a ministry among these people.  As I listened in on the service, there were multiple language groups including French, Swahili, and English.  There were people from many different African nations gathered to worship the Lord of all the earth.

Sharon Baptist Church, and Pastor Steve Tims have been gracious to open their building for this group to meet weekly.  Other churches within HOKSBA have given to support this work.  And we as an association of churches have been involved in supporting as well.

When I think of these “strangers” among us, I wonder how we will respond to them.  We must remember that the gospel is not just for people who are like us, but for all people.  For the Jews in Paul’s day, the mystery was that the gospel was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

• Is God bringing these refugees to us so we can show them the love of Christ and share with the hope of Christ?  YES!
• Is God bringing these “strangers” among us to allow us opportunities to welcome them as if they were Jesus?   YES!

Jesus said that when He comes in His glory He will gather all the nations before Him.  As with a shepherd there will be the separation of the sheep from the goats.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

                   And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

                   And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

There are hundreds of refugees being relocated to Wichita every year.

Midway Baptist Church has found and ministered to some of them through their ministry at Falcon Pointe Apartments. When they arrive in Wichita, they have very little to begin their new lives.

The trauma of their past experiences is difficult to process. Every family at the service on the Sunday I was there had lost loved ones in war or persecution. Many of the families are women with children and no husband because the husband was killed before they escaped their country of origin.

They may have spent months or years in refugee camps before coming to the US.  Now that they are here, understanding and adjusting to the new culture is challenging.

Finding jobs is very difficult. Most people find jobs because of people they know. But when you move to a city and a country where you know no one, the challenge is even greater. And job skills from your life in Africa may not transfer easily.

May the Lord give us His heart for these people He is bringing among us.