 God is using you in mighty ways. I was touched in so many worship services and I know hundreds and thousands of persons were as well as they came to worship with you and then we'll later watch the videos that you did. I've also seen over the last few weeks how each of you have been improving in different ways and just I applaud the way that you're continuing just to find creative ways to share the gospel in this time when people are having to shelter in place and can't physically congregate. Today I wanted to share with you a little bit about how I see that we might can continue to improve ways to connect our congregants and help them live into their membership vows to support the ministries of the church with their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service, and their witness. Now a lot of these things you're already doing and I just want you to continue to think about how might you connect your congregation more in ways that they can fulfill these vows of supporting the ministries of your church with prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness primarily through online worship. So first in online worship with prayers encourage persons to share prayer requests. You can do this through putting a post on there through a pinned note, share your prayer request, setting a time during the worship service when you are encouraging people to share their prayer requests there. In some of the churches I was sharing a prayer request this morning I was worshiping at Farmersville and I put her prayer request to pray for the staffs of our church and a young lady was doing the prayer request and she said, Mr. Owen is asking for prayers for church staffs for ours and for all of the churches and it just formed my heart to hear my prayer request being lifted up in church and then there's others that would come back and would comment on the prayer request that I put in my Facebook note that they are praying for that. So encourage people to write down their prayer requests and then also encourage your congregants to be praying for the prayer requests that they are reading. This is helping them to be engaged, think beyond themselves, think about their congregation and their others by reading the prayer requests that are being listed during your worship time. Second, presence. How can we facilitate congregants being present for one another in this time when the church cannot physically congregate? So thanks to social media there's a very numerous ways they can do that. One is by hosting watch parties so make sure you have that feature up on your on your Facebook posts and encourage your congregants to host a watch party, reach out to their fellow Sunday School or small group members or UMW circles to watch worship together so that they are feeling connected with one another. Ask congregants to comment on the comment whether that's in YouTube or whether that's in Facebook. I would say have a time where you are sharing, are you passing the peace and within worship and people can say peace be with you, they can greet one another. Encourage that interaction so that the body of Christ can connect with each other. Now you'll need a facilitator during this and they can help that and also as well as a moderator if someone gets on your page that shouldn't be on your page and some comments are made they can quickly delete those as well and block people if needed. Third I would say on this on the presence make it easy to find your worship service. There was a number of churches that I tried to find their worship services both on their web page as well as their Facebook page. It was had a hard time finding where the services were being held whether it's on YouTube or whether it was on Facebook as well as what time it was. So make your landing page on your on your web page, edit it so when someone goes to yourchurch.org it lands right there where worship is whether it's on YouTube whether it's on Facebook so that people can do a one click and be with you. And on your Facebook page make on the description of your organization put the time of worship that you are having when you're having it so it's easy to do. The other thing you can do is do an event page and so people see the church as an event that this is going to happen there's a countdown to it there's people places where people could say that they're going or that they're interested in going and they'll get reminders about that. So do the event page in Facebook and with YouTube use the premiere that lets people know that this YouTube event this YouTube video is coming and and so people can find your worship service easy. I found it through the North Texas Conference webpage and if you're not listed there send an email to jacobanntcumc.org and he would be he'll be able to put on the NTC North Texas Conference website when your worship service is. And again connect with your congregants they are your best evangelists making memes making announcements things that they can share ways that you can start building up excitement for the events that you're having whether it's Sunday worship midweek Bible studies or other activities that you're doing. Next I'm going to speak on presence and giving right now before I get to giving. With presence and giving if you can find a way for people to check in to worship I announced this at the beginning of worship take time during an announcements and offering time to do this as well as well as at the end of service to remind people don't forget to check in don't forget to register your attendance and don't forget to give. And so have a link pinned right at the top where people can just click and either check in or a reminder say hello and let us know that you're you're here with us. That way you can take real attendance and find the difference between those who are wanting to connect with your church and those who just happen to scroll by and that way people can also feel like they are saying I am here I am present I'm fulfilling my vow to be present at my church during worship service. And then and giving find get multiple ways for people to give. Some people are accustomed to giving online they already have automatic withdrawals. Some people are using the Venmo which is a cash app and there's other cash apps out there where people can just give cash through online they can develop an account with Venmo. Give your address encourage people to mail checks those persons who like myself still like to give with checks as well. There's ways to give through texting and if your church doesn't have any of that technology the North Texas Conference is offering to process these offerings online for you. So go to NTCUMC.org slash corona dash resources and you can find on there where your church can connect you can share the link and people can give through the North Texas Conference website just put the name of your church and we'll make sure that you get those funds. So we've covered prayers, presents, gifts and now service. I went to one website today and I was horrified it said all church activities are postponed. It broke my heart. I went to another church service Custer Rodney and I UMC and the pastor boldly said the church is not closed and that needs to be the message we need to be communicating. Church is not postponed. Church is not closed. Activities are not suspended. They've just moved. They've moved online. They moved into different ways and so when it comes to service we need to help people connect and into service. Now some churches are continuing with some of their their feeding ministries and other services and you can go to that same NTCUMC.org corona dash resources coronavirus dash resources and look where the Center for Missionary Outreach has needs that are listed. I know UMW are some of the UMWs are are making face masks so there's ways that your congregants can serve and help them find ways that they can serve even when they're sheltered at home and that brings us to the fifth valve that we make to to support the ministry to the church through our witness. This is something that everyone can do. Now is the time that we can all live into our calling to be evangelists. Sharing through social media what our church is doing when worship is inviting other people to connect. We have people that are connecting with the church that haven't connected in years that have never connected because of the ease of being able to connect online. So finding ways to make it easy for your congregants to share posts to share means to share announcements to share your worship service and to encourage them to do so will help your church reach more people than your churches ever reach before. Again I am just amazed at how the North Texas Conference churches have responded and how they have stepped up and how they are reaching out to people and how meaningful your worship services are to so many people and especially to me. I've been humbled and honored to be part of them and I am looking forward to our future worship services together. I know your congregants are looking forward to being back with you but I am blessed to be able to be worshiping with you online and I know this is something that God is going to use in the future for your to church for your church to continue to reach many many more people with the love, grace and good news of Jesus Christ. We're praying for you, we're thankful for your ministry and God bless you.