CNLP 357: JP Pokluda on the Future of Online Preaching, What Pastors Can Learn from YouTubers, and How to Influence the Next Generation
After leading The Porch—the largest young adult ministry in America—JP Pokluda became a senior pastor of a somewhat more traditional church.
He talks about how his preaching changed when church went online, why he hired a YouTuber to create messages, what he thinks the future of preaching will be like, and how to influence the next generation.
Welcome to Episode 357 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Plus, in this episode’s What I’m Thinking About segment, Carey talks about the new workplace, and how you get real accountability from your team.
Guest Links
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Harris Creek Baptist Church
Episode Links
Lead a Better Team
In just a couple of weeks, I’m launching a brand new course that I’m really excited about called Lead a Better Team. In the course, I will talk to you about culture. Almost every organization has a clearly defined mission, vision and strategy. And as a leader, you’re constantly trying to lead a team that embodies the mission and carries out the strategy.
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CONVERSATION LINKS
Welcoming the Future Church by Jonathan Pokluda
Welcome to Adulting by Jonathan Pokluda
Harris Creek video sermon: The Good Infection
Harris Creek video sermon: An Invitation to the Feast
Becoming Something with Jonathan Pokluda
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3 INSIGHTS FROM JP
1. If you want to engage people online, learn from YouTubers
The bad news for most preachers is that the ability to hold people’s attention in a room doesn’t directly transfer to holding people’s attention online. Especially when you look at the next generation. The average teenager struggles to watch an online church service, but can’t resist watching their favorite YouTube channel for hours.
To respond to this trend, JP hired a professional YouTuber part-time to consult with and work for their church. That YouTuber taught them the value of post-production work with animation and video editing within their sermons. They also learned what makes successful online content easy to watch.
2. The way churches allocate their budgets has changed forever
During the interview, Carey asked JP if he planned to keep any of the major budget shifts they made as a result of the COVID crisis. JP responded, “I don’t know how you couldn’t!”
He believes that this crisis is a fault line in the history of the Church, and where and how you need to allocate resources has changed forever. Producing quality online content is already key to reaching the next generation, but until now, most churches weren’t budgeting for it.
The Church used to have the best art and the best architecture in the world. The Church was the Hollywood of the past, and he thinks that it could become that again if church leaders would embrace innovation.
3. Explain why twice as much as the how if you want to reach the generation
JP has reached more young adults than 99% of other church leaders. When asked how he’s done this, he said, “If you want to reach the next generation, explaining the why is twice as important as explaining the what or the how.” If you want to get the next generation to do anything, or buy into any mission, you need to show them why they should want to.
If you don’t explain the why behind the things your organization does, you will begin to lose young people (or likely already have). The next generation is willing to do a lot if you will spend the time on the inspiration and the why.
Quotes from Episode 357
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THRIVE AMIDST THE UNCERTAINTY
Yes, there’s a ton of change happening right now. And it’s exhausting.
As complex as things are, having a simple framework to navigate the change will make the task ahead much easier, including everything we’ve covered in this post.
The challenge for most churches is they have a hard time making decisions, and even when they make a decision, they find it even harder to implement it.
Change that.
My brand new online training, the 30-Day Pivot, will show you how to make and implement decisions quickly and accurately as an organization.
The 30-Day Pivot is a simple 3-step process you and your team can utilize every as often as every 30 days to respond to the change around you and capitalize on it.
- A simple 3-step process your team can use to arrive at your next pivot in 90 minutes or less.
- An approach that fosters team-generated innovation.
- An implementation and evaluation framework that will help your team move quickly and accurately.
Some organizations and churches will thrive in the new normal.
Others won’t.
While the future is uncertain, yours doesn’t have to be.
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Next Episode: Sam Collier
Author, podcaster and pastor Sam Collier, talks about what it was like growing up in the 90s and early 2000s in Black America, what it takes to make it in a white world, and how whites can use their influence to bring about racial reconciliation. Sam talks about how to navigate the backlash and the kind of change anyone can make to make the world (and the church) a more just place for black and brown people.
Subscribe for free now so you won’t miss Episode 358.
By my following comments you may doubt this but this was very enjoyable and some serious reminders to me as to how I do ministry now – thank you! With that I just add 2 quick things:
1) the divide between small and large church is and will only get more huge, mostly due to lack of resources (it’s turning into bog box stores naturally being more attractive and pushing out the small mom and pop stores), and
2) the first rule to YouTubers is keep it real – yet it hit me the hours and intricacies of setting up the perfect sermon delivery online as described I ask: is it keeping it authentic and real when we do so much to make it appealing and attractive and eye-catching? I’m literally wondering, not being dogmatic.
Last thought – could you please do a series for the small church? Really reach into actual small churches (I’m talking 200 or 100 or less) and find out what they are feeling and doing during this time?
Keep it going though – thank you!
Just listened to episode #357 and rightly named because it was powerful like a 357 Magnum. So grateful for Carey’s leadership and Jonathan Pokluda’s insights! The future is bright!!
Thanks for this interview, Carey! I’m the pastor of a church plant in Pittsburgh, PA that was getting ready to launch this Fall before covid happened. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen once people weren’t able or comfortable with meeting in larger groups.
Back in 2018, God had given me a vision of a hybrid model of ministry with home groups meeting on Sundays, watching a streamed service, having lunch together, and then having smaller group discussions/discipleship. We decided to launch with that model instead of a traditional “large launch”. It’s fascinating to watch other churches, even large conventional ones, moving to this kind of model organically during this season, and it just goes to show how God moves and speaks in His Church!
But I’ve definitely been wondering about creative elements and YouTube-like videos during all of this. This was super helpful.