Hello Church!

What’s your favorite part of a Sunday morning church service? If you thought announcements, you’re right. It’s possible to have fun with your announcements and make them memorable. Here’s how you can make your announcement segment flow smoothly, be more informative, and have fun.If there’s a lot going on at your church, be selective in choosing Sunday morning announcements. Set up criteria for choosing events and stick to them. Whichever announcements you choose, promote them on your social media channels. Use social media and emails to highlight the details of the events you promoted on Sunday morning.In this episode of Hello Church, we talk about the ten commandments of church announcements. If you plan your service, you should also plan your announcements. Reinforce the announcements by making them visual, using graphics or videos, and having different people present them.

Welcome to the first episode of season 3! This season we’ll be talking about The Service - the elements that make up a Sunday morning church service - to make your service be about preaching the gospel and being in community with other believers. Today, we’re looking at the big picture - planning your service.Planning gives you focus, allows you to be flexible with that focus, and allows you to be creative without losing focus. It helps us point our efforts in one direction. But not everyone likes to plan – there are reasons for that. Some people don’t know how; it can be a hassle to put a plan together, it takes a lot of time and energy, and plan outcomes vary tremendously.We ask seven questions that will help you plan your service. As we walk through each question, think about how it applies to you and your service. The first question is about the theme of your message and service. What songs, videos, and illustrations will help support it? When should the offering and announcements happen? How your service ends is our last question.In this episode of Hello Church, we talk about how you plan your worship service for a body of believers with purpose, knowing your plans can, and probably will, change.

Easter Sunday is the most important Sunday of the year as we are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. There will be so many people at church: new people, unchurched people, relatives of attenders, people who haven't attended in a while, and your church family. There's a lot happening on Easter.There are several things to consider while working through your Easter message. Keep it short and simple, just focus on the resurrection. Put a lot of effort into your message before that weekend and be sure you've internalized it. Give as much thought to getting your guests to come back as you did to your message. Plan the following Sunday's message or new sermon series, use a promo video to invite people back, and talk about it at the end of your Easter message. The next Sunday's service should be similar to your Easter message: clean, consistent in sermon length, and have the same type of music set. In this episode of Hello Church! we examine the significance of the Easter Sunday sermon and how to craft it, and the importance of your next sermon series as you are inviting your Easter visitors to come back to learn more about Jesus and be part of your community.GET THE EASTER SERMON PREPARATION GUIDEhttps://hellochurchpodcast.com/easter

Sermon Preparation is very important for pastors - they don't know everything or have all the answers about any given biblical topic. Even if they do have enough information for an upcoming sermon, they still want to communicate with their people, help them understand the Bible, and portray scripture accurately, to the best of their ability. We asked the pastors in our Facebook Pastor's Circle, which is a great place to meet other pastors, what they needed in their toolbox.  Many pastors have a sermon preparation toolbox, but what are the must-have tools? Of course, the most important one is a Bible or 3 - there are so many kinds of Bibles. We talk about all the tools you might want to add to your sermon preparation toolbox today, in this episode of Hello Church Podcast.

We're talking about what you can do after you have preached your sermon. You put 8 hours, minimum, into your message prep and after a 30 minute sermon on the weekend, what can you do to get more impact out of those 8 hours. What can you do to help the message live beyond the weekend and leverage your hard work into Monday and through the following weekend? This episode of Hello Church! Podcast will help you get a greater return on all the hours you put into your message prep and allow the truth of God's Word to live beyond the pulpit.https://hellochurchpodcast.com/digital/

Among all the responsibilities you have in your life as a pastor, improving your sermon writing and delivery should be of high importance. One of the biggest contributor to improvement is the lack of critical feedback.Because pastors preach the good news every week, improving and growing as a communicator is very important. 90% of people chose the church they attend based on the pastor's preaching so your message needs to be biblical, clearing, interesting, and relevant and practical.  This episode of Hello Church! explains why asking for feedback from members of your congregation is so crucial; being critiqued will help your sermons become more potent and more compelling than ever.Get the free Sermon Evaluation Formhttp://hellochurchpodcast.com/critique

You want every eye watching and every ear listening. You want the attention of your people on the message you are delivering through the power of the Holy Spirit. All you need to do now is get out of the way and the way you do that is through an intentional delivery. The research is complete. The outline is filled in. The writing is finished. And you've practiced your sermon. Your delivery is the final stage of your sermon and everything from your cadence, to your appearance, to your gestures goes into a strong delivery. In this episode of Hello Church! Podcast we talk through simple but powerful delivery details to help you optimize the other aspects of communication that have nothing to do with your words. The message you are preaching has eternal significance and the last thing you want to do is distract from the work of the Holy Spirit.

Art makes us feel all the emotions: happy, sad, angry, awe, and wonder. Applied to sermon graphics, they can reaffirm the message of the Bible.Your sermon series graphics should reflect the big idea of your message or series. Knowing your audience and what you want them to feel and remember from your message can help when choosing colors and objects for your graphic. Because the content of your message is timeless, make sure your graphic is clear, don't worry about being clever. Getting feedback from other communicators is helpful; don't forget to have a couple of people proof the final product for spelling and punctuation.In this episode of Hello Church!, we talk about the importance of sermon series graphics as they apply to your church branding while piquing the interest of your people.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

Pastors, how memorable are your sermons? You prepare your sermon by praying, determining the topic, then researching and studying the Bible passage. Then you craft your message for your congregation, but will they remember it?Charles Spurgeon said sermon illustrations are like windows, they let the light in and illuminate your sermon. Your illustration will capture the attention of those listening, and by using an illustration for each point, you will keep it. A good illustration builds a bridge between biblical times and modern times. Sermon illustrations shed light on each of your main points and help you deliver a powerful message that your people will be able to apply to their lives.In this episode of Hello Church! we talk about the importance of using Sermon Illustrations and how to use them to make your sermons memorable.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

Have you stood up in front of the congregation and five minutes into your message, asked for a mulligan? Hopefully not. Still, there is a good chance you've preached a sermon and wished you could go back and start over. A strong introduction sets the tone for your entire message. It is what draws people in and tells them, "what I am about to share is relevant to you." The best way to craft an introduction that captures attention is to wait until the very end of writing your sermon after you've completed come up with your applications, illustrations, speaking points, and conclusion. With your message drafted you can focus your attention on writing a rich introduction with depth, informed by the entirety of your sermon. In this episode of Hello Church! we talk about how to take advantage of your sermon introduction and give you several questions to answer prior to taking the stage so that your congregation is waiting with bated breath, with anticipation.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

How important is the conclusion of your sermon? Here is what Pastor Rick Warren has to say, "A sermon without a conclusion is a sermon without a purpose. Changed lives come from great conclusions." The conclusion is the most important part of the sermon and it seems so fitting that it is often the most difficult portion of the sermon to draft. But the struggle is worth it! Yes, you want your entire sermon to be strong, but if you have to pick one area to solidify with the limited time you have, the conclusion is where that investment should go. Why? Because a strong conclusion will make even the roughest of sermons great. In this episode of Hello Church! you'll learn several prompts or filters you can use to inspect your conclusion and move forward with your sermon in confidence, knowing that when your message is preached people will be inspired to follow Jesus in new and transformational ways.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

Can you remember where you were and who you were with when you saw The Passion of the Christ for the first time? You might be surprised how many people would be able to tell you everything about that experience. People who heard that same story told hundreds of times suddenly remember everything about their experience with Mel Gibson's film. Why? Because stories make sermon stick. Preachers need to be good storytellers and luckily for those of us who aren't great storytellers by nature, there are lots of prompts, strategies, and tricks to tell better stories.In this episode of Hello Church! Podcast we share how to elevate your storytelling through 7 different types of storytelling as well as a list of storytelling fails you will want to avoid. The last thing you want when telling a story, whether it's yours or one from scripture, is to get in the way of the core message and miss out on the impact it could and should have on listeners.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

There is no right way to create a sermon outline. But is there a right way for you? Absolutely! You want people to leave your church with new understanding of God's Word, contemplating how it applies to their lives today. Whether you realize it or not, that's a pretty tall order to fill. Fortunately, God's Word is filled with the best stories, narratives, and teachings every compiled into one book. The challenge is not the material — the challenge is our delivery of the material. A good sermon outline will help your messages make sense, logically, by providing you a pathway to maneuver through the content you've prepared in a way that is engaging, interesting, and compelling. In this episode we talk about what types of sermon outlines exist, why a strong sermon outline matters, where sermon planning goes wrong, and how to transform your sermon outline into a strong delivery that leaves your people thinking about how God's Word applies to their life today.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

How do you start planning your message? Do you focus on the conclusion first? The opening? Do you look draw inspiration from a story or illustration? Of all the places you could start there is one place you should start. Every message should begin with a big idea. Call it the central theme, call it the main point, call it whatever you like — but this big idea is not a statement you decide, but rather it is poignant summary of the passage your preaching and the point from which your entire message is developed. In this episode we unpack why the big idea matters, what your sermon main point should include, the process to discover your big idea, and using your big idea to influence your message and the delivery of your central theme. Follow Hello Church! on Instagram Hello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary. Watch Hello Church! on YouTube Join the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors LIMITED TIME BONUS MENTIONED:  http://ministrypass.com/bonus *This offer was mentioned when the bonus was still available, and may be expired if clicked after end-date. Requests to use the offer may be declined if it is out of the bonus window.*

How do you feel about public speaking? As a pastor, you’re probably doing a lot of it — and it’s a learned skill, just like any other. Jack Hester, the teaching pastor at Mars Hill Church in Mobile, Alabama, has been preaching nearly every week for twenty-five years. He’s got some tips for how to improve your public speaking skills so that your content delivery can be as effective as possible. Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

How do you get people to really respond to your sermons? And no, I don’t mean in terms of persnickety emails after you preach. I mean seeing people really “get it” because you were able to communicate the Word to them in a powerful way. It’s not necessarily up to us — the Spirit of God is the One providing breakthroughs — but how can we make sure we’re fostering those breakthroughs as best we can?Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

Ever skipped over a list of names in your selected passage? You bet you have. It’s hard to know how to preach through them and squeeze out practical applications for your audience. But what are we missing when we jump over Old Testament genealogies and the listed names of New Testament disciples? More careful study can unearth some valuable gems.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

What do you need to know before you plant a church? It’s a big leap to go out and plant a church — so how can you make sure you’re pursuing your path prayerfully and wisely? Continuing our conversation with author, pastor, and leadership trainer John Stange, we’re talking about the seven things you need to know before you head out on a church-planting venture.Follow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors

You preach the Gospel to others — but do you regularly preach it to yourself? Today we’re interviewing John Stange, whose new book Dwell on These Things releases in May. In addition to being an author, podcaster, mentor, and leadership trainer, John Stange is a church planter who has been a full-time pastor for the past 23 years. John knows how important it is for pastors to preach the good news to their own hearts, especially when they’re dealing with pressure, criticism, and negativity from their own churches and society at large. --Stange's book, Dwell on These Things: https://amzn.to/38TsGVP and his website: desirejesus.comFollow Hello Church! on InstagramHello Church! is powered by Ministry Pass and Sermonary.Watch Hello Church! on YouTubeJoin the Pastor's Circle Facebook group, exclusively for Pastors