Leadership Live is a concept that Village Bible Church developed to connect with its congregation. Village Bible is a church of 1,500 people, spread across 5 campuses. They were looking for ways to connect with their people. They needed to move beyond “content” to “connect.” Village Bible wanted to update their people on the state of the church, but didn’t want it to just be content—they wanted to connect.

Village decided to do a talk show format with a host and 4 pastors, each from home via Zoom. They utilized a question and answer format to engage congregants.
Their result were, “It worked great. The night of, we had 300 unique screens watch for more than 1 minute. The average person watched 50% of the 50 minute episode.” The found that people came and went. They always had about 150 people watching.

In the days to follow, many others watched the video, which more than doubled the viewers. “The feedback was very positive. People loved it. We’ll continue to do these every Monday evening.”

Village communicated the event and coordinated the questions

  1. The morning of: Text, email and social media posts announcing the Leadership Live and inviting questions.
  2. At 5 pm they organized questions. They had received about 25 questions that came in via text, 10 via email and none via Facebook post comments. They sorted the questions and comments by category and mixed them with the topics we had planned to discuss
  3. At 6:50 pm they prepared to go live
  4. At 7:00 Leadership Live began

They used the social media export function built into Zoom. It exports to Facebook, Youtube or it can be sent to a custom feed. They used the custom feed to direct it to our broadcast system. We use Boxcast to broadcast. “That made it really slick and they have a way to integrate their software with Zoom.” That also allowed the church to use custom overlays on the video, which made it look professional.

Zoom sends the view (gallery or speaker) that is displayed on the host’s screen. So they simply toggled between the two modes as it made sense. A leader said, “I did that while also trying to engage in the dialog; next time I’ll have someone else do as it’s hard to do both.”

Boxcast broadcasts to all of our outlets: 5 Facebook pages, one for each campus, 1 Youtube Account, and also to our website.

They had one person who fed questions into the Zoom chat bar. This was a crucial role. He sat behind a large monitor with the incoming text message screen; they use Text In Church and the 5 facebook pages where the broadcast was streaming. He collected comments and questions as they came in during the broadcast and posted them on the Zoom chat bar so all could see them. The host was the one that primarily referred to them. He was on the meeting but with mic and video off and then we used the Zoom function to not display people without video, so he didn’t show up.

The church shot for 45 minutes. Next time they will let it go 60 minutes because people stayed engaged through it all.

They also polled leaders and asked for prayer:

  1. If you have been hearing specific questions from your flock or if you have specific questions you would like to be answered, please make sure to send those my way this afternoon.
  2. Please pray that the technology would work out and that this would be effective ways to connect with our people. And with whatever goes wrong (something will) that we will learn how to make it better on Thursday!
  3. Tune in and let us know what you think.

Questions and Comments before Leadership Live

Leadership

  • How are our leaders holding up?
  • Thank you! It is wonderful to see the leadership live and be encouraged by you all!
  • It is great to see the unity in putting these live telecasts together. We agree that it is not the best for the future of the church but during this crisis it has been great. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to finding ways to serve!
  • One word that comes to mind when I think of our church is Love. Ephesians chapter 4 verses 11, 15 and 16. 
  • I really needed Pastor Dave’s message yesterday. Each one of our Pastors are a blessing to our VBC. All of you who are leading and work for us through these times are so much of a blessing to our church and each one of us. I do feel helpless sometimes through this but I am praying for all of you. Love and miss you all very much.

Future Services

  • What do the next two months look like? What programs may get canceled?
  • What has to happen for us to meet in-person again?
  • What will be the new sermon series? What will church look like when we come back? Seating in every other row? 
  • Can we have additional services so we can be more spread out? 
  • Limited fellowship time, foyer fellowship? 
  • How will Nursery/children’s ministries be affected?
  • Are there plans to scrub the church buildings? Professionally or volunteers?
  • How will VBC reopen when it’s deemed O.K. to do so, what health precautions will VBC implement? Will small groups be able to meet in person?
  • Even when the government says we can gather again, I know many of us who are retired won’t be comfortable returning until a vaccine is developed. I know these online services are a ton of work—is there a possibility that they could somehow continue?

Online Services

  • How long will we do online services?
  • Love our music so much.
  • Really have benefited from the online Sunday messages.
  • Just want to thank all of you for the wonderful online services each week. We know there is a lot of effort going into each aspect of every service. The preaching has all been very good. Thank you all. Yes, it was refreshing, instilling hope and confidence.
  • Prime timers might enjoy an old hymn added in.

Small Groups

  • Are small groups going to continue into the summer if we remain on lockdown?
  • What are the qualifications for a small group leader?
  • I have shared with my small group that Zoom, conference call prayer lines, and live streams have been amazing life lines.

Events and Building Campaign

  • What about the Missions Garage Sale?
  • Will you cancel the trip to Lake Ann?
  • Do we still have plans to work on the Aurora parking lot?
  • Is the All-in construction still going forward as planned beginning with the parking lots this summer?

Outreach

  • How can we help and reach out during this time?
  • What are the best ways to reach out to neighbors right now?

Finances

  • How is our church doing financially?

Pandemic Concerns

  • I’ve heard a lot recently that some people supposedly being behind the pandemic and possibly damaging vaccine. This has caused distress for me. Can you address this? How do I handle discussions about it?
  • People wonder if this is what Jesus refers to as end times In Matthew & Revalation?
  • Can you explain in depth what it means in Romans when we are expected to follow civil authorities and how that mixes in with civil liberties and demands. I guess it’s a concern I’m seeing on the interpretation of both law and His Word and how to handle that pushback.

Questions and Comments During Leadership Live

Leadership

  • Really enjoyed the leadership live! Makes me feel connected to what is going on with the church.
  • Was recently invited to join your church, hope you don’t mind me tuning in 

Outreach

  • Are there church families or families in the neighborhood in need that we can help in financially or in some other way?
  • How did the food bank go today?
  • We found out that the local food bank is almost out of food because the need is so great. Was wondering if we could come along side and help with this need.
  • I have had some questions regarding benevolence and how we are reaching out to those in need. 

Small Groups

  • I would like to get into a small group at the Plano church? How can I do that?

Finances

  • Can you provide some insight into general financial needs of staff and people within the church?

Online Services

  • I think the music has been great. Could we have more voices that would encourage us more to sing along at home?
  • Have you considered continuing the online even after we are able to go back to church to be able to reach the new viewers
  • My family and I really enjoy the trivia before the service. Will it continue?
  • Since you have connected with so many people via streaming the services during the quarantine, do you foresee continuing streaming the services when we get back to normal?
  • I think it is a good idea to have a campus sponsor or host the Sunday mornings.

Building Campaign

  • I know with the loss of funds coming in for the building fund are we still going to get the parking lots done while we have no cars to deal with and funds were available for them.
  • Can you provide some insight into the all-in projects?

Pandemic Concerns

  • I know many are looking for answers about signs—including the kids in our youth group. Some might think these are signs from Revelation. How can you speak to this theologically and bring encouragement? Especially how can believers answer this to non believers? Or are these questions specific to VBC?

Events

  • Great idea to have a virtual women’s retreat.
  • Our girls youth group had a virtual movie night last night—I have Pure Flix. It was fun and easy to do on Zoom, just screen share—but you have to make adjustments to the sound in advance settings so all can hear a video.
  • What is going on with garage sale plans?