 Okay. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to BC 314, our course on media and technology in ministry. Thank you to everyone for joining today. Thank you for joining the class. Let's take a moment to pray and we will get started. Could somebody please lead us? Dear Heavenly Father, I come to you under the name of Jesus. Thank you for the stage. Thank you for the clash we are about to have. Thank you for the skills and talent that you have placed in us, Lord. And as we learn about this media and technology, God, I pray that you will help us to understand the things and we use it in our life so that we can glorify you through this technology. We can use it for the expansion of the Kingdom of Jesus. Be with us and guide us. Give us a good life recognition throughout the session. We thank you for past rashes and I thank you for all my classmates over here. Be with us and guide us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right, so the last couple of weeks, we've been considering different areas where the church and the way we do ministry in the church has gone through several transitions. So we talked about the ministry of the word of God, the way the word is being preached, called preaching styles or the way the preacher presents everything. We talked about the venue, how that has changed. We talked about worship, worship ministry, how that has changed. We also then talked about creative arts, performing arts, how that has been useful and how that has evolved. Then we also talked about some aspects of media, radio, television and films. How in those areas things have really evolved and served the church. We want to cover one more set of things in which we just refer to as entertainment and gaming. So this is something more current. And just to give us some perspective and realize that these are also areas where people are being involved and where ministry can happen as we talk about that. And after that, in lesson number 11, we are going to change and move more towards the use of social media and communication, social media and then slowly start moving into other areas where media technology is being used and we'll get into those details. So first let's just talk about entertainment and gaming. So this is another area where by entertainment we mean people want to relax. They want to do something light, something fun, like recreation. Just take your mind off work and take your mind off business and relax. So generally there will be some form of entertainment. So it's interesting to see and it's good to see that believers have provided good alternatives to what the world is of. So this form of entertainment or recreation we can see in terms of maybe exhibitions, maybe live entertainment like you may have people doing stand-up comedies or things like that. And of course you can have entertainment that comes to media. All of these things can find expressions in many different ways. You can have amusement parks, art exhibitions, fairs, festivals, museums and so on. And it's interesting to see to some extent the church of believers being involved in this area. I'm not saying you find it all over the world. For example, in India I wouldn't say there's a lot. There's probably not much or very little. Sometimes you may go to a church that is like a museum and it's okay. Here are all the things that remind us of the missionaries who came or the people who served here from some several hundred years ago. And it's very inspiring to go and see this. I remember when I was in the US, I went to Otto Roberts University campus. And it was so amazing. I think I forget the details now, but they had, maybe it was under the prayer tab itself, but they had this whole, it's almost like you can say kind of like a museum, but they had pictures and other things from the beginning of all Robert Satanist history. And you could walk through it. It was so inspiring to just walk through it, see all these things like, hey, here was a man who was dying and God healed him. And God gave him a vision of serving. God raised him up to serve. And then God gave him a vision to build a university and he built a university. So just going through that museum kind of thing was so inspiring. I also remember going through, I think Billy Graham in North Carolina, they have another museum, just the life and the story of Billy Graham. And so you just walk through that museum. They have all the pictures and from different things from his life. And you walk through it and you see, and it's so inspiring. It inspires you. It gives you encouragement that, hey, this is how God works. You can take some ordinary person and use them to impact the world. So these kinds of things, which they fall in the category of entertainment, meaning you're not like doing some big study or anything. You just hear being relaxed, you're going, you're seeing these things. But as you walk through that museum, you get so inspired. You get so encouraged and so on. So that's just another area that we can minister to people, be an encouragement to people. And along those lines that are Christian theme parks. And I think it's nice to get some time. You can go online and go to these websites here in Ark Encounter. So in Ark Encounter, somebody has, this person has tried to recreate the art, like rebuild the entire art. So they actually built it. And you can go inside and you have like a journey. Like, okay, of course we are thinking this how it would have happened, how the animals would have been all kept inside the Ark. And it's kind of like almost a real life, life-size experience. You walk through the Ark. And of course it's an opportunity to speak about the Lord and speak about God and things of the Bible. And it's a learning, plus it's a real life encounter with these things. So you can, it's nice. Same thing with the creation of the Asian. So it's nice that people are doing this because, yeah, even Christians, we need some, you know, time to relax and go out and see these things and relax. And then it's nice that we can go to such places and at the same time be encouraged and reminded. But just to let us know that these are the things that are being done in a nice way. Not all over the world, but at least in some measure, some things happening. And the last point I just want to mention is about gaming. When you say gaming, we're just talking about using video games or any form of video technology to create something that is fun. But of course we are using it in an educational way in a positive way. Yes, there is the wrong use of gaming, meaning, you know, there are a lot of games that are created which are, you know, which, you know, incorrect fighting and war and this, that and all those kinds of things. That's the wrong use. But it can also be used in a positive way, like for education or community building, training and so on. So I'm talking about the positive use of gaming. So even if you're training, for example, you want to train doctors, you want to train people in other aspects. They use these kinds of technology, video games to simulate things. So it's actually like you're doing it, but you're not doing it on a physical person, but it's simulated. So that's how people learn. So they simulate whatever they want to train them in and it gives them experience. Now, the thought here is why can't we use this for, you know, kingdom purposes for church or ministry purposes. And there are lots of ideas and there are some people I think you can search online. You'll find some people who are beginning to do things here, but I fully feel that there's so much more that can be done in this space. So just presenting it here, something to keep in mind. And if there are people with these skills, we should encourage them. We can create some nice educational games where we teach people Bible stories in an interactive way. They can run it on their phone or their computer and interact with it and learn through it. We can give them virtual tours, especially in a Bible location and so on. So not everybody can physically get up and go, you know, to other places, but at least they can see and kind of physically, I mean, experience through video and simulation, what it would have been, what it would look like. I can go through those parts of the world. We can have interactive sermons and devotionals. So while the message is there, there could be some little, you know, answer this question, some little quiz or something that's coming up. It's getting people to engage with the sermon or the devotional. You could have multiplayer games where four or five people are playing and it's building community. Of course, you're playing around something that's Bible based, things like that. We can also use it for missions and outreach. We can create awareness of other parts of the world, what is happening in other parts of the world. Through these short videos and presentations and give people an opportunity to think about what, how will you solve the problems in other parts of the world and so on. Similarly with worship and music, Bible study, discipleship, testimonies, social issues, apps, storytelling, maybe even to help people meditate in the Word of God. We can create something where they can listen, watch and at the same time meditate in God's Word. So there are many ideas there. Some people have started doing something and there's an example in christianity.com where you can go and it's almost like a crossword puzzle. It's a small game but it tests your knowledge about certain Bible things. But people will have fun doing it, filling up the crossword, but at the same time they're reminding themselves about Bible stories and so on. So this is also another area that can be used. Now one reason why I think this is important is because a lot of young people are being caught up in video games, especially because many of them have phones, mobile phones, mobile devices and so on. When I say young, talking about kids and teenagers especially, sometimes you might even see adults playing video games, but generally kids and teenagers who are so caught up, they're playing something so intensely on their phone, and sometimes hours they can go by with them doing this. Of course we don't want, it's an addiction, it can become an addiction, so we should not let it become an addiction, but if we can provide some healthy alternatives, some meaningful alternatives so that at least they focus their attention on something meaningful or something that's educational, that would be a think of positive things. That's why I'm presenting it here. But we also have to be careful that this should not become an addiction, it should not consume people's time. So those thoughts here on entertainment and gaming, just to be aware of what's happening in the world and something to keep in mind, let's see if there are any thoughts or comments from anyone in the class. Any thoughts, any comments on this lesson 10 on entertainment and gaming? Do you think these are positive things, or do you think we should just stay away from any form of entertainment and any form of gaming? I would just like to hear your thoughts. Personally I think it's positive, and I remember long back maybe when I was a teenager and I saw a Christian Bible story kind of something, I don't remember the names, but even though I knew all the stories I still went in and it was quite exciting to see how they have made it, what they want to say to it and all this. So it was nice, it was really engaging above all. There's no distraction I believe. It's not like listening to a long sermon where sometimes we think of something else. We are so caught up in it, that's what I feel like because there's always some shift happening, change in colors, something different coming up. So distraction can be very less I think. I think it's positive and it's good for the next generation as so many wrong things are coming up, even in the game industry and so many things. It's good if the kids have access to this so that they can choose the right things and they can go really strong in the world. Thank you for sharing here. It really holds people's attention and so engages the young people, the teenagers and at the same time meaningfully communicating something from God's Word. So it's nice. Divya, go ahead please. Thank you, Pastor. I was especially thinking about young kids. There were times when I had searched for things to safely show to my kids that are biblical and that do not divert from the doctrines and such and it's really helpful when people do take it up into this level of... It's a ministry I would say because surely parents are looking for something that's safe and something that's useful for kids. So, yeah, one of the programs that my kids still watch that even I enjoy seeing it. It's a superb book. It's very entertaining as well as... It really brings out the Bible stories in a very practical way. So that's really helpful. Also, there are lots of resources available especially for young kids. There's even... You might have heard of Answers in Genesis by Ken Ham, which talks about the creation story and they have even... We can subscribe for their channel and they have very good programs for kids which really helps parents and I believe it's such a great ministry and really people need it because there's so much of other things that is going on around and so difficult to always filter what is good and which is not good for the kids. I just want to share. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that, Vivian. Anyone else who wants to share any thoughts and experiences or any resources that you have encountered in entertainment and gaming that is useful? Okay, fine. So, with that, we bring to a close this particular section of thinking of all the contemporary ways ministry is being done. We've covered a wide range of things. Now, we are going to shift slightly and kind of focus on communications and online engagement, how we engage people. Now, that's also very big space, big areas so we will take some time to go through this and I'll just share with you some of our learning some of our experiences. I'm not saying that we know everything, we don't. We are still learning as we go through what we're doing but I can share with you some of the practices we are using and we are also constantly evolving in what we do. So, I'll share with you some of the things and then I'll encourage you to explore whatever areas of interest. So, we're going to start off with chapter 11. We're going to talk about digital communications and engagement. Essentially, we are in this lesson, we are talking about using digital communication tools and how we can engage with people. I will share these things with you and a little later, we'll get into more software platforms and we'll get into more of telling you what these are the platforms we're using, these are the technology we're using that comes later but this one is kind of giving us an overview of all the communication tools. So, we'll talk about websites. Initially, we just started by saying we need to have a strategy, how are we going to engage people and then we'll talk about websites, email communications, messaging which we'll meet in switch. I think all of us are familiar with some of the content platforms where we can distribute digital content, how we can use a church app, podcasts and so on. So, now, when we talk about digital communications, engaging with people digitally, like when we started off this course, we said, you know, all of us, especially in urban cities and so on, we do spend a lot of time connected in the connected world online, whether it may be online websites, whether it's social media platforms, whether it's messaging, whatever software we use, whether it's WhatsApp or anything else. Whether it's email communications, all of these things have become kind of a normal class of our life. For those of us who are living in cities, now, of course, those who might be living in rural areas, maybe to a lesser extent, but definitely those of us living in urban centers, it's just so much, the digital world is so much of our lives. So, it is important for us as a church, as a ministry, to think about ways in which we are going to engage people, you know, and things have changed. So, example, maybe 30 years ago, or 35 years ago, before Internet came on the scene, you would not be thinking about this if we want to reach people, we would be thinking about printing tracts, going door to door, house to house, giving tracts, doing ministry that way, reaching people that way. But in the last 30 years, so much has changed. The world has, you know, the digital world has become so much a part of our lives. We can't ignore it. We can't say, no, this is not important. It is such an important part of our lives, everybody's life. And so, we need to start thinking, we need to think about, okay, how can we use all that we have in the digital world to reach people, to serve people inside the church, that means our own congregation, believers, and those outside the church, that means those who still need to be focused with the gospel, how to be ministered to them in this digital world, because everybody is there, they're connected, they're doing something. So, we need some thoughts, we need some ideas, and we need to have some strategy. So, general, some basic questions we should ask is, okay, inside the church, think about the congregation, the people you're ministering to, who are they? So, you can say, a lot of my people, they're all young people, just depending on their demographic, or a lot of young people in the church, they are maybe on this social platform, media platform, and so on. What are their needs? Okay, young people are going through a lot of challenges, emotionally, mentally, peer pressure, whatever, identify their needs. You also have elderly people who are lonely, who are alone, they're at home, so understand their needs. How are they to interact digitally? So, what are these people doing? Now, which part of the digital world are they in? Are they comfortable, what are they comfortable using? Maybe they're comfortable with, you know, using certain kind of messaging platform, or they are comfortable watching things on social media, so on, so forth. So, what digital channels would serve that you would use to service people? What are the objectives you want to achieve? Okay, we want for believers, of course, we want to strengthen them, we want to encourage them, we want to answer their questions, we want to provide them resources that they can use to help others, you know, all these things you can think about. And then, so in order to achieve that, what content, what must you give to them, what content must you provide? How should you provide it? Or, you know, on a daily basis, if I can give them a short message for five minutes, that will be very obvious to them. Or maybe, you know, if I can put all the verses on a particular topic and give to them, that will be useful, so on, so forth. So, think about, you know, how can we provide this to them? And then, okay, evaluate progress, modify and repeat. That means things are changing, so keep an eye on how things are changing and how you need to be serving the people. So, those in the congregation and those outside the church, the crowd out there in the world around the church and beyond, how can you serve them? So, these are simple questions to ask and to think and, you know, and just be very mindful of what is happening in the digital world so that you could leverage those opportunities to serve people both inside the church and outside the church. So, think about this and this will help you and help us to develop some sort of a strategy. Now, of course, when we do things, we need to evaluate progress. That means, you know, how effective are we in serving the people and so on. So, in doing this, one is we should avoid what we, you know, generally we refer to as vanity matrix. That means these are numbers, but they don't really tell us, they don't tell us the real picture. So, for example, YouTube, if you put out a video on YouTube, well, for example, a Sunday sermon video, right? The views that you see the view come out is not actually a real picture of how many people watched the sermon because the way YouTube counts is if somebody watches even 30 seconds of the video, it's counted as a view. But what would they have listened in 30 seconds in a 30-minute sermon? I think, right? So, we can't take that count, the view count as a direct correlation of how many people were actually ministered to through the sermon. For example, if the view count had 100,000, it doesn't mean there were 100,000 people who listened to the sermon. It could be that maybe only a thousand people actually actually listened to the full sermon. The rest of it may have watched, you know, 5 seconds, 10 seconds. They just looked, oh, yeah, nice, they've ever looked at, okay, this is such a big, you know, nice, nice, nice lights here that moved on so that that count of 100,000 really is not telling us clearly whether that particular sermon, how many people that particular sermon affected. So, we call it a vanity metrics or how many views, likes and comments. In one sense, it does give a metric on visibility. That means at least 100,000 people saw or came to know that there was this video. That's a correct metric. That means they knew or they hadn't even, you know, 30-second engagement to the video. That means at least 100,000 people knew or know that this video exists. That's correct. But it doesn't mean 100,000 people actually listen to the sermon. That's a different metric, right? So to get that, you'll have to go into the YouTube analytics and look at the duration of people who watched the video. So then that's another different metric. You see the duration engagement or how many people actually stayed on this for 30 minutes. Then you'll get a correct count. Okay, there were 100,000 people actually watched for 30 minutes. That means 1000 people actually watched the sermon. View count is 100,000. It was exposed to, it was presented to 100,000 people who watched it for maybe 30 seconds or whatever, not duration. So the actual number of people who watched that full sermon was this. So these are two different metrics, right? One is just a vanity metric. It's not telling you the real picture, real story of impact. But there's a different metric that tells you the real impact, right? So to evaluate progress, we should ask real questions and we should look at the real numbers, the real metrics of the people. So the real question is like, are we reaching people online? So how many people are we reaching online? How many people are responding to what we're doing? And how many people are actually connecting? So if you're looking at, we have tried to generate people back to connect with the church and that's a real number, like how many people are actually connecting back to the church? Or if you're thinking about how effective your website is and how many people are finding us online. So that's a real number. If you have that number, how many people are moving from the first step to the next step? That is, they may maybe find us online. How many of them actually come to church? How many of them actually get connected? So those are things that we should be looking at. Those are the real numbers we should be looking at. These are just examples. So to evaluate progress, ask real questions. Don't get trapped. Don't get fascinated or caught up by the views or the likes or things like that. Because that really is not giving us an accurate picture. Some examples of how we can generate some real engagement. So there used to be a time when people come to visit church and we still do. If they come physically, we tell them, please fill up a card. We give them, we call it the first time it's this card. But then let's say, so that is what people come physically to church. When people are coming online or seeing us online, we can't give them a physical card, but maybe we can give them an e-book. Say, go to our website, download this e-book, experiencing God or something. Then we can count how many people are actually going and downloading the book. So they'll fill up maybe and give us a name and email ID and download the book. So then we know, okay, that's an actual engagement. We know actual count, like how many people actually came into the service. We know how many people actually did something. They went, they entered their details and they downloaded this e-book. That's a real, you know, a good way of online engagement. So suppose you host, we used to do, let's say, seminars in-house, but now that we have online tools, conferencing tools, what do we do a webinar like a Zoom conference or Zoom online thing, on Wednesday, up on topics that are interest and engage people. So then, and you're talking about things that are relevant, say for families, anxieties or whatever, something that's relevant to the, there are different topics here that's mentioned or issues or matters that are relevant to different segments and you engage with people. So that's a real thing. Now you're using a digital platform like some online conferencing webinar tool and you're engaging with people digitally on matters that they would be interested in and people are connected. That's real. Suppose you change your website online and you create a website or you redesign your website to help people make their journey of life. So, you know, and so just making it like, hey, this is who we are, this is our address and fine, but now you're doing your website and this play that I'll help you on your spiritual journey. So that's a meaningful change to engage people online or you can even do a podcast on some say example, just example of marriage to help people in their marriage and from there, they can connect with the church. That's a, again, another form of digital engagement. You're using podcasts to address a particular area of need which is for marriages and from there you're helping people connect to the church or you can even and do an online marriage program, whatever the treat or whatever you can call it and from there, so people participate online and from there you welcome them to church. So, and this is just ideas which different people have tried and they're using a digital platform to address the particular needs, the real needs, engage the people online and from there invite them to be part of the Christian community and so on. So this is that. So we can think of, so when you talk about digital engagement, here's some things you can just work thinking about it. Suppose you want to create a digital engagement to target teens and younger adults like to be between 13 to 23. So what are some of the things we can do to target teenagers and younger adults? How would we go about this? So first of all, we want to identify digital platforms. Where are these people spending their time? Are they on Instagram? Are they using some other platform? I mean, whoever the group that target the people that you're engaging with, are they active on some other? And so, of course, we can go online, look at some data. Sometimes we're able to get data. Otherwise, you just ask around, hey, where are all these people? What are you guys using mostly? So then, if they all are using a certain platform, then try to engage them there or on those few platforms that they are involved in, you engage them there. And then you think about what are their needs. Therefore, what is the content I'm going to create and how am I going to release it and so on. We'll talk more about that as we go. So let me just pause here for a moment. Any thoughts or any questions here on what we just talked about now? Having a strategy for digital engagement and then to look at real numbers to assess how effective we are. Don't get caught up by, you know, vanity metrics, but look at real numbers and just giving us an assortment of ideas. Let me say there's so many different things we can do to address different needs, whether it is teenagers, marriages, young couples, working professionals. There are different things we can do, whether you want a webinar or a podcast and engage them in their platforms. Just to give us an introduction here. Any questions, any comments anybody wants to make? Okay. All good? Okay, so let's start. Sorry about that, I was clicking on the wrong button. Let's break this down further. And we will talk about, we start off with the very basics, which is emails, right? So, sorry, websites. We don't start off with websites. So a website these days is almost everybody expected. Now, you know, maybe some years ago, if we wanted, we used to use brochures, printed brochures. If you want to introduce your ministry, you would have a brochure, you know, and you'd give the brochure to people, like if this is, you know, my address is there, all the details are there, you'll give out brochures. The people who share about the church or ministry, it used to be, that's the way generally we would do it. But nowadays, you don't mind too many people having doing brochures. Everybody, you know, just are expecting you to have a website because if they want to know more about the church or they want to know more about the ministry, so what's the website? Can I go, you know, read up online what you're doing, what are the people, what are the ministries you do? That's kind of an expectation. So let's talk a little bit here about, so having a website for your church or ministry is a useful thing. And then compared to printing brochures, it's lower cost and it's available 24-7 online. Anybody can go and access it and so there's so many benefits. You can have a website as compared to printed brochures. So just some thoughts here when you are considering setting up a website for your church or ministry. Usually you would use what we refer to as a content management system. That means you don't have to build a website from scratch. Now, of course, there are people who can help you build a website from scratch if you want to. But if you're thinking of something long-term, if you're thinking of something that's going to keep growing, we would recommend using a content management website. There are different platforms and these are open source that means they are freely available. We, at APC, we build all the websites using Joomla. We use this. Lots of other people use WordPress. We just chose Joomla because we felt uncomfortable working but it had kind of things that we were looking for. WordPress is also a very, very common content management system and then there are other things, other places you could do. The advantage of using a content management system is you can just customize things. You can create certain things out of the way you want it. It's very easy to learn and there are lots and lots of people who build websites using content management systems. You can also use other platforms like you mentioned where you can just build it yourself. Today you can go and you can set up a website on Squarespace or WordPress, get whatever name you want and it's very easy to set it up. Now, some things I just want to mention here is if you are using a consultant or somebody from outside to help you do this, very important, make sure that you have full control over your website and platform. I don't remember. There have been instances where another Christian ministry would reach out to us and they would say, we engage this developer to build our website and now he's holding us ransom basically. He's not giving us the username password and he's controlling us and he can't make any changes. Basically, that developer or consultant is holding this Christian organization because he set up everything, he's forgot control on their website and so they're in bigger than a difficult situation. So don't let that happen. So all the lobbying credentials, registration commission, it should be in your organization's control and don't hand that off to some other consultant and if you're engaging an outside consultant, have a contract in place so that all the response is done. So be careful when you're engaging somebody from outside even though they believe us, sometimes they can become a little unreasonable. So choose a very meaningful domain name. You may want something short and easy to remember, something that they can associate with the ministry, easy to type and if you're using a mnemonic, it should not be too long. So example, if the name of the church is Hope City Church in Bangalore, you'll try to see if you can find something like Hope City or HCCB, Hope City Church Bangalore or something like that. So for example, for us, it's all people's church and World Outreach. So we just call it APCWO. It's just the mnemonic for all people's church and World Outreach, apcwo.org or apcmusor, examinejesus.com. And you can find out what domain names are available. If you go to whois.com, you enter your domain name. You can find out if it's available. And for a church or a ministry, you'll usually use .orgs extension and you can use other extensions depending on which part of the world you are. Then of course you would, once you register your domain name, you will want to host it somewhere. So you will use a hosting provider to register your name, your domain name and also to host your website. So basically, I don't want to get too technical here, but when somebody types in your URL of your website, of course, through the internet, it goes to a registrar, looks it up and then from there the DNS server says, okay, you have to go to this address. It goes to the hosting server and then serves your content from there. So you register it and your domain name is registered on a domain name server from where people can go to your website. So you would use a hosting provider. I just mentioned too that there are so many all over the world. Maybe a local one will be cheaper. You will register your website and they will host your website for you as well and they will take care of all the details of registering your domain name and pushing it on domain name servers. Just a few more thoughts. So when you're building your website, you need to think about how you want to build it, what you want to communicate through your website. Okay, maybe we'll take a break and come back on and talk about that. We'll talk about the building of the website, some thoughts here. Are you all with me so far? Is it getting boring or is it getting too uninteresting? You all with me so far? Yes, it's good. All right, so if it's getting boring, if you're not interested, just let me know. I don't know much. I'll tell you later on. I'll show you in our next lecture how important this is because people will find you. If you build a good website, people will find you easily come shop and church because you have a good website. All right, so let's take a break. I've got 11 and continue the class. Thank you.