A Five Step Process to Keep Members Engaged Online

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I recently spoke at length with Pastor Josh Kaiser, Teaching Pastor at OneHope Church in Toledo, Ohio.  I was especially interested in talking to him because he and the other leadership at OneHope quickly jumped online when the Ohio stay-at-home orders began and created a successful digital church community.

Josh, a pastor for five years and the father of five young children, says the quarantine in Ohio makes things “a little crazy at my house”. Josh helped found OneHope Church three years ago with an initial group of 75 people. Prior to the pandemic, attendance hovered around 550 people on a Sunday. Josh notes that the church has “a lot of young adults and college students”.

Pastor Josh is also part of the millennial generation and you might think those two factors (that Josh is a millennial and the church already has a number of young adults and college students) account for their success in getting people involved online.

However, as you will read, there’s more to it than that. I asked Josh, “How do you take members who are just watching online right now and help them become more engaged?”

Here’s the 5-step process as described by Josh in his own words.

Step 1:
An Online Connect Card - and Specific Words to Consider Using

What we have done already is make an online connect card. We're trying to figure out like language to put around that. One of the hot button things for churches reaching out to younger people is buzz words like purpose and belonging and identity. In fact, if you look at a lot of the new church plants, almost always, one of their values is one of those three things. They haven't yet passed into like, “Oh, everybody does that”, you know, but, they still have a lot of meaning to younger people.

So we're trying to figure out what it looks like to belong to an online community. What does it look like to begin to see yourself differently having an identity in Jesus? How do you live out your purpose in quarantine?

Step 2:
A Phone Call from One of the Pastors – and Why That Matters

So a couple of ways we answer those questions. When you fill out the online connect card, you're going to get a phone call from me. Because we're not going to do texts. I mean some people might prefer texts, so I don't want to say that you always get a phone call from me, but I'm trying to make it personal connection. That is the goal. We're making a personal connection because that's the first step to belonging. You make a relationship with somebody in the church, right? And then you meet more people and then you meet even more people.

Step 3:
A Facebook Group – to Create Community

And that's kind of how it goes. We have an OneHope community group on Facebook, and that is the group of people who do call OneHope their home and they interact and share prayer requests.

Interactive Questions

We post an interactive question every day and people chat. On Saturday we do prayer requests and everybody types out their prayer requests and then we say, if you've prayed for it, put a light on that request. And so it's fun to watch throughout the day. You know, the numbers go up as people have shared and people have prayed. You'll never make somebody feel like they really belong just online. But that's as close I think, as you're going to get when you're sharing and being vulnerable.

Prayer Requests and a Weekly Challenge

And then you see all these people who have said that they've prayed for you. I mean, that's pretty, this is the closest it's going to get. I think so. So that's been fun. We also have weekly challenges. Keeping with our church theme of Love No Matter What, the weekly challenge involves doing stuff that involves showing love to our community.

So every week we come up with a new challenge for people to do. That's kind of what belonging looks like right now. You and I chat, you get into the online community group and then we try to help you live out your purpose and your calling by loving on the people that you're near.

Step 4:
Online Small Groups – and Challenges of Leading Them

We do also have online life groups. That's been tricky. I'll be honest. Some people, let me put it this way, the extroverts love it because they're like, “Oh, this is the connection that I was missing. This is the thing that I wanted”.

But it also has to be somebody who is comfortable navigating computer type stuff. It's difficult for people who don't have that background or experience. So that's a little tricky.

When I'm leading a normal life group, if I've noticed somebody isn't talking or hasn't shared, it's very natural, I feel at least it's very natural for me. You just say, “Hey, you know, I was thinking about this so and so. Do you have any thoughts about that?” And give them space to speak.

Online, when you have six people talking at the same time, you don't have the volume level that you do in a normal group. Sometimes if a quiet introvert is sharing -- I don't want to call certain people loud, but you know, the fast-talking extrovert, they're just not going to stop. So it's different, but we're learning and I think it's getting off the ground pretty good.

Step 5:
Technical Details – Such as Setting up Good Camera Shots

What we've noticed is that there are a lot of bigger churches that already had an online platform and they're just using their online platform, which makes perfect sense. Right?

Then there are smaller churches who maybe didn't have the resources to pull off something as the bigger churches do. But one of the things that we've noticed about those bigger churches is that the camera shots are far away. It's like you're sitting in the audience and the pastor is speaking on the stage. What we've noticed is that the feel of them of these things that you don't feel like you're in the room.

So we’ve been very intentional about the camera shots that we get. We speak directly into the camera. The camera is kind of close. It's not like zoomed in on the face, but it feels like you're close. We want you to feel like we're in the room with you.

Again, that connection and engagement is the chief value there.

Bonus Consideration #1:
Understanding the (Perhaps) Surprising Demographics of Online Engagement

I asked Josh, “I wonder if there's a difference in the demographics. I know you have a lot of younger people, but then you have some older people and you've got a lot, you know, just a lot of different demographics there. Have you found that there all of them are engaging equally or are there some demographics that seem to be not connecting or connecting?”

Here’s what Josh told me.

Facebook's demographic: millennials and Gen Z don't like Facebook. They've been off Facebook for a while. Cause all their parents are on Facebook.

Facebook is for middle-aged people right now. Our audience on Facebook tends to reflect that. We do have young families that will engage in that way. Right? Millennials love Instagram and Tik Tok right now. I don’t even know where Snapchat went. It was so popular and then boom, nobody does it anymore anyway.

So it's just kind of interesting the different ways that they engage. What we've seen as far as engaging in our Facebook is probably the best place to put your sermon right now because it allows for the interaction.

People can comment. The first week we did it, man, I remember I was talking about, I think it was talking about shame and I had two or three people start saying this is a big struggle for me. So then I started a chat with them on a separate page. We're both watching the sermon and I'm just kind of chatting with them, doing some pastoral counseling as they're listening to the sermon. And it's like, this is happening in real-time. This is amazing!

However, I don't know that anybody under 30 watches are our services online right now. It's kind of irritating to me. So we have to, you know, we've talked about possibly putting them up on Instagram and doing an Instagram sort of a feel to it. Maybe that would get more millennials.

We also have been very intentional about building relationships with young professionals, young adults in our church. So I know they are engaging in our online life groups way more than anybody else. Yeah. So it's really interesting.

Right now what I'm learning is, just kind of the breakdown and how there's a huge generational difference between millennials and Gen Z and then Gen Y and baby boomers. I'm seeing that in how they are connecting to the church. It's just really, really interesting to me.

So anyway, I could probably say more about that but it's just fascinating.

Bonus Consideration #2:
The New Normal – Not That Much Different from the Old Normal?

I also asked Pastor Josh, “So what do you see as a new normal? I wonder how to even ask that question because I'm not really sure what ‘new normal’ means. But that’s what people are asking.”  

Again, here is Josh’s reply.

Yes. So this is a very interesting question and one that we have a lively and healthy debate about in our staff meetings.

I personally am in the camp that I don't think that this is going to cause any major changes in the way that we do church long-term. I seem to be in the minority with that. So maybe your listeners will disagree, that's fine. But I'll tell you why.

I think that first of all, Millennials and Gen Z - Gen Z has been called the social media generation. Millennials and Gen Z connect more online and via text message before this happened. One of the things that we've noticed is that the social skills of Gen Y and Baby Boomers are much the much more developed, not just because they're a little older, but because they just didn't have texting and social media and Instant Messenger, you know, all this stuff.

So the social talent skill, however you want to say that, of the younger generations is, it's not as strong as the older generations.

On top of that, the younger generations love to experience. I think this is true of any younger generation. Youth loves having a big experience.

If you put those two things together, at least I think, and what I'm seeing is that midsize churches who meet on a Sunday morning where you can go, you don't necessarily know everybody, but you know, a couple of people, you can go and you can just kind of blend in. You don't have to get singled out. You can go and you can have that experience. But not necessarily have to get called out so or see somebody that you don't want to know.

You don't have to exercise those social skills, so to speak. I think that that is still going to be what the younger generations want from the church. So we have a lot of talk about our house churches. What's going to happen going forward? Is this all going to be online? I definitely think that figuring out how to record your service and put it online, that was a thing before the pandemic.

Needing to have an online presence was a thing before the pandemic. Extra necessary now. But I think it's going to largely go back to that. So that's my sense.

Again, I'm, kind of in the minority on our staff in that. Are we gonna’ make things drastically different? Are we going to have to change our church models for this? I don't think so, but that's just me.

CONCLUSIONS

Finally, I asked Josh, “What would be your greatest leadership takeaway from this whole thing?” I loved his answer! Here’s what he said.      

Connection. Connection. Connection. People value human interaction and making a connection. Figuring out how to translate that to online is –there's a learning curve for that, but that the fact that we're isolated, that has not changed.

People need connection. Now more than ever. Personally, as an introvert, that's daunting. But one of the most powerful ways that I know of to help somebody grow in their knowledge of Jesus is through a relationship and human interaction, that connection.

So that's my biggest leadership takeaway.

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You can connect with Pastor Josh Kaiser here:

Facebook
Instagram @jd.kaiser419
Josh says he probably should be on Twitter but isn’t

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Pastor Josh Kaiser of OneHope Church in Toledo, Ohio shared his five step process for keeping members engaged online with Dr. Jeannie. You can connect with Josh on Facebook or Instagram @jd.kaiser419.

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