Harvest: To the Ends of the Earth

Sunshine? Check. Tacos? Check. Awesome people who love Jesus? Check. All of these things were present during our trip to visit our friends at Harvest. You may be familiar with Harvest because of their crusades, which have reached millions of people all over the world with the gospel. We love hearing how God is using Pastor Greg and the rest of the Harvest team to reach the ends of the earth, but Harvest isn’t focused solely on crusades. During our conversation with their team, it was apparent to us that Harvest has a strong heart for the local church as well. In fact, the success of Harvest Crusades would be impossible without a) the power of Jesus (duh!) and b) the help of local churches.

If you aren’t familiar with Harvest Crusades, they are essentially large-scale events held at stadiums around North America that feature worship music from popular artists, a clear, gospel-centered message from Pastor Greg Laurie, and an invitation to receive Christ as Lord and Savior. After the message, Pastor Greg invites those who have made a profession of faith to come down from their seats to receive prayer. Since the inception of Harvest Crusades in 1990, almost 500,000 people have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. So awesome, right?! But what happens to those people after the event?

This is where the local church comes into play. In addition to putting on huge crusades, Harvest also is a local church, with congregation spread throughout Southern California and Hawaii. On top of that, Harvest also teams up with local churches in each city where a crusade is hosted to follow up with new believers after they have received Christ. Once a person comes to the front of the stage after making a profession of faith, they are connected with a Decision Follow-Up worker who prays with them and gives them a free Bible. The Follow-Up worker documents that person’s decision to follow Christ, and at the end of the evening, that documentation is shared with local churches that Harvest partners with. Each local church connects with the new believers within 48 hours, giving them information about how to learn more about Jesus and how to get connected to a local congregation.

We love the work that Harvest is doing and we are super thankful for our partnership with Pastor Greg and their team. Check out this video to learn more about what Harvest does and their heart for reaching the ends of the earth with the good news of Jesus:

Introducing Subsplash Notes

One of the most powerful ways that your community engages with your content is by taking notes during the church service each week. We’ve sought to make the note-taking process easier than ever with our latest feature, Subsplash Notes. Our team has been working hard on this feature, and it lays the groundwork for many additional features we will be adding to our platform in the future. Check out this video and read below to learn more about Subsplash Notes:

What is Subsplash Notes?

Subsplash Notes acts as a digital journal. To access Notes, all users have to do is pull up a media item and simply take a note. These notes will automatically sync across all devices, so a note that is taken at church on Sunday will also show up on that user’s tablet when they get home. Notes are stored in the app side menu, so users will never have to worry about losing them again, even when they purchase a new device! Additionally, each note is attached to the corresponding media item, so users can easily access their notes in the future.

How is Subsplash Notes different from Fill in Notes?

You may already be using the Fill in Notes tool to build outlines and digital bulletins for your Sunday services. Subsplash Notes is different in that it provides a free-form digital journal for your users. With this feature enabled, the option to take a note will automatically show up on each new media item, so you won’t have to put any work into creating a note each week. Subsplash Notes will not replace Fill in Notes. Both features will be available to your ministry to use in conjunction with one another.

When will my church get Subsplash Notes?

We are in the process of adding Subsplash Notes to every single app on our platform! You can expect to see Notes available in your app over the coming weeks. If you have any questions about how to best utilize Subsplash Notes, you can reach out to your Client Success Manager or give us a call at 206-965-8090.

Engaged Communities are Giving Communities

Barna recently published a new report that explored how Christians are (or in some cases, are not) being generous with their money. The results were fascinating….over 30% of Christians identified as self-focused in their financial priorities. When it comes to generosity, Barna identified two main types of Christians: ”Givers” and “Keepers”. The report dives into the motivations behind financial decisions for each group. Check it out here and see if you find any parallels in your local congregation.

What does it mean?

Engaged communities lead to generous communities. For us, that was the main takeaway from Barna’s report. It can be easy for many church leaders to simply encourage “good habits” when it comes to generosity. We look at the numbers and think of ways we can get more people to check off the box for generosity. Maybe we even start a financial campaign or implement a new giving system. Those things aren’t bad. In fact, they are necessary. But Christ-centered generosity is not simply a good habit or something that happens only with the right amount of prodding or when the right tools are in place. It is a response to the overwhelming generosity that we’ve experienced from Jesus.

What can you do?

Bad news: if you are a pastor, you can’t really change someone’s heart when it comes to generosity. Good news: Jesus can absolutely do that. Instead of just simply asking people to consider giving more to the church or looking for “new” ways to boost generosity, spend more time developing holistic disciples in your church. People are going to be less likely to give when they are not engaged in the life of your church, and especially less likely to give when they are not engaged in the gospel. Cultivating a welcoming atmosphere and teaching a biblical theology of generosity (we wrote more about that here) will do way more for developing a generous people than just encouraging good habits.

David Kinneman, president of Barna Group, says, “So often we focus on cultivating generous habits rather than on making generous disciples….when we attend to the condition of our minds, hearts and souls, the limits of our generosity are stretched and our giving capabilities strengthened.” We couldn’t agree more. Let’s focus on making generous disciples!  

Saddleback Church: Innovating for Jesus

We recently got back from sunny Southern California, where we spent time hanging out with some of the awesome ministries we get to serve. One of those ministries was our friends at Saddleback Church. Saddleback was actually one of the first churches to adopt the Subsplash Platform back in 2009, and they've been leading the charge when it comes to innovation ever since. Millions of people from all around the world have been able to hear the good news of Jesus through Saddleback's app. But the app isn't the only way they are engaging with people. Check out our interview with Haley Veturis, Saddleback's Social Media Manager, to learn more about how they are planting churches all around the world, tackling mental illness, and empowering their local congregation to lead one of their 500 ministries in Southern California and beyond.  

6 Questions You Should Ask Every App Provider

Does your church or ministry currently have an app? Are you shopping for an app? Have you thought about getting one before? Do you currently have an app but wish you knew if it was the best option? If you are reading this, then chances are you probably answered “yes” to at least one of those questions. With so many app and giving providers on the market claiming to offer the best product, it can be hard to know which platform is the right fit for your ministry. We want to make that easier for you, so we’ve compiled a list of questions to ask every app and giving company you talk to. If you are shopping for a mobile engagement platform, these questions will help you narrow your search:

Do you have a native media player inside your apps?

Many providers put media in their apps by linking to a third-party media vendor (such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud). This means that if something goes wrong with your media hosting, you have to reach out to a third-party company to handle the issue. Additionally, web-based media players are usually slower to load, not as easy to interact with, and drain more battery life and data from a user’s phone. Why? Because they were created to be used on the web, not inside a native app. If you want your users to have the best mobile experience, pasting those web-based solutions into your app will not be the answer. A native media player gives your users significantly more flexibility, which keeps them coming back to your app, which will help boost engagement in your church.

Do you offer unlimited tech support with every package?

As a ministry leader, you probably have a pretty full schedule. There is no reason why you should have to spend hours learning a new system or updating your app every week. A good support team will help alleviate that burden and make the setup process an easy one. You’ll want to make sure that unlimited phone and email support is included with any app package you are considering. If it isn’t, you could be setting yourself up for future frustration.

What engagement tools do you offer?

If you are looking into getting an app for your church, it is probably because you want to use it as a discipleship tool. Make sure to ask every provider what kind of engagement features they offer, and how each of those tools can be used to help your congregation on their discipleship journey. A few foundational features you’ll definitely want to keep an eye out for are one-click media publishing with the native media player like we mentioned above, user accounts, group push notifications, events, custom Bible reading plans, connect forms, ChMS integrations, digital bulletins, and an easy sharing experience.

Who builds your platform?

Believe it or not, many companies simply white-label other app platforms. This may not sound like a huge deal, but when you purchase an app from a company that is reselling another company’s software, you simply aren’t going to get the same support, updates, or new features as you would from an in-house platform. Companies that white-label other platforms have limited control of what they are able to build for you, simply because it is not their own software. A company that builds their own software and has a good track record of adding new features will be able to serve your ministry best.

What is your effective rate for online and mobile giving?

Any giving provider you talk to should (hopefully) be transparent about their processing rates, but they may not go into much detail about their effective rates. It is extremely important to get as much detail about this as possible. What exactly does “effective rate” mean? Glad you asked! Your effective rate is going to be the total percentage of money that the giving provider (and any third-party service involved with the transaction) is taking from every donation. In addition to standard processing fees, many companies charge hidden fees that impact each transaction and leave your ministry with less money. You will want to ask each provider, “If John donates $100 to our church with his debit card, how much of that $100 will end up in our bank account after all fees are taken out?” The answer will determine your effective rate. To learn more about effective rates, download our free eBook - it has all the information you need to ensure that you get the best rates.

What is your pricing structure?

Some companies determine their pricing based on your church’s size and budget. This means that a church with an annual budget of $1,000,000 could end up paying more than a church with an annual budget $100,000 for the exact same product and features. There is no reason why your church should have to pay more money for the same product simply because your budget is bigger. Ask each company if you can see a specific breakdown of their pricing levels and what they offer with each different package.

There are many more good questions to ask your app provider, but we didn’t want to keep you here all day. Good news, though….if you would like the complete list of questions to ask, we have that available for you! Click here to download our free eBook that goes into even more detail of what questions will help you get the best deal and why they are important. And as always, feel free to give us a call with any questions! You can reach us by phone at 206-965-8090 or by email at hello@subsplash.com