Ministry At Scale

Featuring Adam Graber, Christianity Tomorrow & Co-Host of Device & Virtue PodcastRecorded live at the Digital Ministry Conference 2025How do we saturate the digital world with Scripture? In this episode of the Ministry at Scale Podcast, Adam Graber unpacks findings from groundbreaking research conducted in partnership with the British and Foreign Bible Society. With a deep understanding of digital theology and years of experience consulting ministries worldwide, Adam reveals the current state of Bible engagement across 27 “digital nations” — platforms with over 70 million monthly users — and outlines where the greatest gaps and opportunities lie.Listeners will discover which platforms are overserved or underserved by digital Bible creators, the surprising dominance of individual creators versus organizations, and what types of tools and alliances are still desperately needed. Whether you're a ministry leader, strategist, or digital content creator, this episode offers data-driven insights and a compelling challenge to rethink your role in the digital Bible ecosystem.Recommended Resources:https://adamgraber.com/Christianity Tomorrow Adam on LinkedInDevice and Virtue Podcast

Josh Kashorek is the Marketing Director at Five Q, a digital marketing agency focused on helping ministries reach more people online. With over 15 years of experience in digital strategy, analytics, and marketing, Josh brings valuable expertise to this topic. In this episode, Josh shares insights from Five Q's annual Ministry Benchmark Study, analyzing digital metrics across over 1,000 ministries. Here are some of the key topics covered: The Continued Importance of SEO Nearly 70% of ministries gained rankings for keywords in Google's top 100 search results this year, up from 50% last year. Josh emphasizes that SEO remains crucial for driving organic traffic, which comprises over half the traffic for many ministries. Website Speed Impacts User Engagement While ministry websites showed modest improvements in PageSpeed scores, Josh notes there is still plenty of room for optimization – especially on mobile devices. Faster websites lead to better user engagement and reduced bounce rates. Social Media Integration Trends 83% of ministries did not list any social media channels on their websites, choosing instead to drive traffic back to their owned properties. Among those promoting social, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube were the top channels utilized. Follower Growth Insights The median number of Facebook and Instagram followers grew year-over-year across ministries studied, while Twitter and YouTube follower counts shrank slightly. Realistic Posting Frequencies Despite advice to post daily, the median number of monthly posts was 16 on Facebook, 13 on Instagram, and lower on Twitter and YouTube – highlighting the content creation challenges many ministries face. The full benchmark study is available for free download, and ministries can request a personalized scorecard and strategy consultation from Five Q. Listen to the entire Ministry of Skill podcast episode for more valuable digital marketing insights and to learn how you can better evaluate and improve your online impact.

Josh Kashorek is the Director of Marketing at Five Q, a platform helping organizations leverage no-code tools and automation. His creative mindset and technical skills converge in an insightful perspective on how ministries can steward AI for greater impact. In this thought-provoking episode, Josh shares: The Existential Crisis Inspiring His AI Experiments Josh opens by recounting the "minor existential crisis" sparked by a report predicting that up to 70% of work activities could be automated by 2030. As someone in marketing/communications, he wondered if his skills were becoming obsolete. This led him to dive into exploring AI capabilities hands-on. Overcoming AI Content Creation Challenges While tools like ChatGPT can generate passable content, Josh outlines key hurdles like factual inaccuracies, lack of unique voice/opinion, and generic sameness across outputs. His solution: provide contextual guardrails by inputting your ministry's real content to infuse your distinct voice and brand. A Replicable Framework for Automating Workflows Josh walks through his code-enabled workflow for rapidly generating branded social media visuals with compelling quotes from source material. What manually took 15 minutes was automated in a mind-blowing 3 seconds! He encourages ministries to analyze repeatable tasks for automation potential. Embracing Joy over Fear in Kingdom Stewardship Drawing inspiration from the Parable of the Talents, Josh challenges listeners to not cower under the "weight of stewardship" amid radical changes like AI. Instead, he cheers embracing your God-given role and responsibility with joy, trusting your ministry is part of God's plan. Whether providing a basic AI content creation demo or translating a biblical narrative, Josh casts a vision for faithfully experimenting with these emerging tools. His parting charge? Use AI as a megaphone to amplify your ministry's unique voice and mission, not replace it. Don't miss this creative thinker's perspective on facing technological disruption as a "Christitunity" to invest the Master's resources for greater Kingdom impact.

Corey Alderin is the founder of Sermon Shots, a platform that helps churches transform their full sermons into popular short-form video content for Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. In this hands-on workshop, Corey shares his expertise on leveraging AI to create thumb-stopping, engaging clips that reach people where they are consuming content. Why Vertical Video Content Matters Now More Than Ever Corey highlights the seismic shift happening in social media, where follower count doesn't determine who sees your content. The AI algorithms analyze each video's content and match it with the right audience members most likely to engage. This unlocks massive reach potential even for ministries with small followings. 5 Keys to Creating Viral-Worthy Vertical Clips 1. Captions - With most viewing on mute, having captions is crucial 2. Keep It Brief - Shorter videos perform better to sustain engagement 3. Grab Attention Early - Use a provocative hook in the first 2-5 seconds 4. Leverage Music - Adding the right music can invoke desired emotions 5. Highlight Faces - Close-up shots of faces are proven attention drivers Walk-Through: Turning a Sermon into Multiple Engaging Clips In the live demo, Corey shows exactly how the Sermon Shots platform utilizes AI to streamline the clip creation process: 1. Upload your long-form video content 2. Select from pre-built appealing designs and styles 3. Let the AI suggest top moments or identify them by keyword 4. Fine-tune clips with text, branding, zooming, music and more 5. Preview clips on each platform to optimize appearance 6. Download ready-to-post video clips in a fraction of the normal time The Power of AI to Multiply Your Content's ReachWhat used to take hours can now be done rapidly thanks to AI capabilities like speech-to-text, facial detection, and identifying engaging moments. This allows ministries to repurpose one sermon into a stream of natively formatted videos perfectly suited for each social platform. Corey's innovative approach combines AI's efficiency with human curation to create ultra-engaging content that expands your ministry's reach and impact like never before. For a first-hand look at this game-changing process, listen to Corey's full instructive workshop now!

Andrew Rogers is the co-founder of BibleChat.ai, an innovative app that uses AI to help people engage more deeply with the Bible. With over 75,000 downloads and users in 188 countries, BibleChat has been pioneering the use of artificial intelligence for Christian ministry. In this insightful episode, Andrew shares:The Alarming Decline of Biblical LiteracyAndrew highlights shocking statistics like 26 million Americans stopping Bible reading since COVID and only a third being able to name the four gospel books. This Biblical illiteracy crisis represents both a huge problem and massive opportunity.Introducing Faith Assistant - AI for MinistriesTo tackle this issue, Andrew introduced Faith Assistant - BibleChat's new product that brings AI capabilities to churches, ministries and Christian media. It understands each organization's unique teachings to provide personalized, spiritually enriching experiences.Surfacing Your Ministry's Content with AIBy indexing sermon libraries, ebooks, articles and more, Faith Assistant surfaces the perfect content to answer user questions and needs. It remembers context, provides summaries, and can even auto-generate customized Bible studies.Real Examples from Partners Like KCBI RadioAndrew showcased powerful use cases from partners like KCBI radio, Concordia Lutheran Church, and Pastor Richard Ellis. From Finding relevant sermons to answering theological questions in a denominationally appropriate way, the applications are endless.Shaping AI to Spread the GospelAndrew's passion shines through as he describes this innovative approach to shaping AI technology to increase biblical engagement and ultimately further the Great Commission in powerful new ways. This episode is packed with insights, real-world examples, and an inspiring vision for how AI can be leveraged for kingdom impact. To hear Andrew's full presentation and vision, be sure to listen to the entire Ministry of Scale podcast!

During this talk given at the Digital Ministry Conference in 2022, Aly Hammond & Chip Johnston from Virtuous provide 8 responsive mindsets that ministries and organizations can utilize to solve some of the big problems that many non profits are facing today. Personal For AllHow do we treat all donors the way we treat major donors? This doesn’t mean you’ll have the capacity to take all your donors to dinner, but it does mean you can send every donor a personal thank you email, call and text. If you have hundreds of thousands of people in your database of donors, you can followup with all your donors in a highly personalized way based on what they’ve done.Innovate, Experiment and Embrace FailureIt’s important to try new things and get really comfortable with failing.Focus on TrustRelationships thrive on trust and accountability. Donors have rightful expectations that whoever they’re donating to will do what they say they will do. Jennifer McCrea from the Generosity Network puts it like this: “Resources will tend to flow naturally towards you when you focus on the most important aspect of the fundraising process: creating human connections”. Donors tend to continue giving when they feel connected with and have confidence in the organization they are involved with.Value Motivational Insights Over BehaviorIt’s incredibly important to understand somebody’s intent. What’s their connection? Why are they giving? What’s their motivation for giving? The first thing to find out is “why”. Listen so you can understand the intentions of your donors so you can serve them in the most effective way possible. Breaking Down SilosCombining your people, platforms and processes to work in harmony together will help build deep, authentic donor relationships at scale.Be Abundantly ThankfulGenerosity breeds generosity. Don’t lose sight of the sacrifice that your donors are making with their time and money. Rather than treating donors like an ATM, lead with gratitude and provide highly personal and meaningful experiences.Design Plans, Adapt, Stay CuriousWrite out your plans in pencil. Be willing to fail and learn from your failures. “Some organizations will thrive from this increased chaos, some will be unprepared and some will merely fight it and lose.” as Seth Godin put it.View Generosity Beyond the TransactionThere are often so many transactions, it’s hard to see beyond it. Ask questions like: What was the mindset behind that donation?Why did it take place?Take steps to focus on personalization in order to best serve donors based on who they are as a whole.To listen to the entire talk, listen to episode #74 of the Ministry at Scale Podcast.

In this session from the Digital Ministry Conference, Pete Marra, the Vice President of Innovation at the Colson Center discusses how to get started with risk mitigation for your ministry. Your Ministry is Like the Three Little PigsIn the story of the three little pigs, each pig picked different materials to build their house, one used straw, another used sticks and the last pig used bricks. When the Big Bad Wolf stopped by and began huffing and puffing the results were often disastrous for the little pigs. Your ministry is likely built on straw, sticks or bricks as well, though it is most likely a combination of materials and risk assessments will help you identify the areas your ministry is being held together by straw.Building Resilience Through and N+1 MindsetN+1 comes from network administration. It stands for Node plus 1 which means you have your main node (server, channel, means of communication etc.) plus an alternate or backup in case something happens to the main node. When thinking about this in your ministry you need to think beyond just your data, you need to think about N+1 in terms of people, processes, and technology. The 4 A’s of Risk MitigationAssessment - What is it that you are going to measure to assess the risk score of your ministry. This will be based on probability and impact.Alignment - This is about bringing agreement across your team as to what your risk is and how you will handle it.Assignment - This is where you decide who will head up your risk mitigation plan.Action - This is where you put your plan into action and start building resilience into your ministry. Resilience Doesn’t Have to Be ExpensiveOne simple way to ensure you don’t lose your data is to download it from the cloud and store it offline somewhere. For example you could get a backup of your email list.Bottom line Pete, wants to make sure that the biggest takeaway you have from his talk is to get started, anything you put in place is better than having nothing in place to mitigate risk. Pete shares many more practical ideas so be sure to listen to the full episode, but whatever you do, get started now.