Digital Ministry Strategy Template

richmulley
Sep 7, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Mar 23, 2023

In a previous post, I described a Biblical basis for digital ministry and the opportunity it presents to extend the church's reach with the gospel message. Since the definition of word "digital" is in flux these days, I also offered a working definition ("describing those products, tools, strategies, and content that directly relate to enabling an organization’s online presence") in another post. Collectively, these posts provide an answer to the question of why the church should engage in digital ministry.

We turn now to the question of how to formulate and conduct a digital ministry in your church. The following content is mostly strategic, not tactical, and intends to provide a high level framework to guide the formation of specific tasks and steps. Given the wide variety of opinion in the church about technology, leaders will also find much of the content to be debatable within their particular church contexts, which is okay. View this as a starting point for a church-specific strategy.

Guiding Principles

Guiding principles serve as a high-level compass for your ministry. The detailed activities and tasks related to the eventual strategy implementation should always serve one or more of these principles/values. I offer the principles below as a starting point for discussion with your team and/or church leadership. You may disagree or have other principles in mind - the point is to achieve a consensus on a limited number of high level principles that will keep the ministry focused for years to come.

Online drives In-person - Good online presence will extend your church's "reach" for the sake of the gospel. The ongoing work of discipleship, however, requires more in-person than virtual interaction, and this should be reflected as best as possible in online content. Good content will make the viewer desire in-person contact.
Content over Presentation - Attractive visual presentation means nothing without high quality underlying content. The latter can exist without the former, but the reverse is not true.
Engagement over Information - Content should be biased toward action, not passivity. Good content will lead people to take next steps in engaging with the church.
Easy Accessibility - Brevity, clarity, predictable placement and strategic timing all contribute to easy (not to be confused with “superficial”) consumption.
Targeted Relevance - The content must “hook” the audience and then hold their attention with information that they actually care about. Stale content, in particular, can quickly kill an online channel.

Decision Points

The menu of digital technology available to churches is an overwhelming variety of really cool stuff that tempts church leaders to keep grabbing the "product du jour" until their technology portfolio becomes an expensive, disjointed, underutilized, and unmanageable beast. Taking the time to formulate a focused strategy will avoid the dreaded "peanut butter spread" of barely effective products and processes comprising your digital ministry. At a minimum, make sure you answer these questions clearly:

Desired Outcomes - What are you trying to achieve? "We need better online presence" is too general and "1000 more likes on our Facebook page" does not equate to any spiritual value. Examples of a more meaningful outcomes might be "A significant increase in thoughtful comments on our Youtube videos" or "An increase in worship service attendance resulting from online views" which would indicate better online engagement resulting in direct spiritual impact.
Target Audience - Who are you most trying to reach/impact? Is outreach or in-reach your primary goal? Perhaps the demographics of your church's geographical area indicate an urgent need to reach a particular people group? Trying to reach everyone is OK, but sometimes targeted campaigns generate more effective engagement.
Subject Matter - What topics will truly interest your online audience? A good starting point is "announcement" material (e.g. events, new sermon series, etc.), but you'll want to progress to more engaging content as soon as possible. For example, creating short, 1-minute "reels" with engaging clips from a sermon is a good way to generate online discussion. Avoid excessively controversial topics unless they are core to the mission of the church. Political posts, in particular, are subject to wild misinterpretation in our currently polarized climate.
Technology Portfolio - What products/platforms/services do you need to do the job? Start with a high quality web site. "High quality" does not mean "big" or "flashy". If possible, find someone with experience in digital marketing and graphic design to lead the design. Start simple and keep the content fresh - once people see stale content they will be reluctant to return to your site. Add social media next, with particular focus on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok. This will all come with significant expense, so you need to make that clear at the outset. Do not give this to a high school or college student as their senior project. If you don't have the resources to hire someone, scale down your portfolio to a point where it can be effectively maintained with existing resources.

Before you launch...

As you proceed to develop your church's strategy, move toward implementation as quickly as possible, even if the first steps are small. Any one of the preceding points can lead to weeks of "analysis paralysis" - especially with a talented and opinionated team. Once a few key points are decided, put some plans in motion even if some other points are lagging behind. This will serve to clarify the ongoing strategy development and lend some momentum to the project.