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Behind the Scenes on Creating a Church TV Spot
Life Church Michigan's very first monthly worship service is Sunday, September 16th, 11am at The Dow Event Center.
Since we're a start-from-scratch scrappy start-up, the biggest hurdle for our team is that no one knows we exist!
We want to cast a wide net in the Great Lakes Bay Region as we seek to reach people far from God.
When we read the Scriptures, Pentecost did not happen because of a direct mail campaign. It was a move of God.
We know that unless God's Spirit intervenes, all our efforts are doomed for failure. Starting a new church is all about Jesus showing up and building His church.
That said, we see over and over in the Bible that Jesus spreads Life through His church. His followers get a white-hot passion for Him and can't help but invite everyone they know to come meet Him. In today's world, those invites can happen via Facebook, on Twitter, through postcards, radio spots, and yes, television spots:
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how we filmed our new tv spot:
- Wise Counsel. This wasn't my idea. Jeff Forester, pastor of Heritage Church in Sterling Heights and one of Life Church's board members, urged me early on to consider doing tv spots. I'm really glad he pushed the idea because it's turned out to be a great experience for us.
- Affordable. Since our church has no paid staff, we can be flexible with pointing our funds toward different projects. This one falls under the Missions umbrella. If tv spots are a good investment for Billy Graham, they're a good investment for us.
- Most Nearly All Church Commercials are Cheesy. They usually feature a guy with big purple hair talking about lambs and "Ah-Jeez-us." Cheesy like Cheeze Whiz. Hopefully we achieved something closer to anti-cheese.
- No Bells and Whistles. We didn't try to be cool or anything, just a single-camera shot of me talking about what I'm passionate about. It's the simplest tv commercial we could think of.
- Aimed at People Far From God. Andy Stanley says that the reason people don't go to church is because they've been to one. Ouch. So we scripted our tv spot as a conversation with someone who doesn't like going to church.
Side-Note: Life Church isn't here to compete with the Body of Christ; hopefully we're going to help COMPLETE the Body! There are tons of GREAT churches throughout our region with strong, godly leaders like my friend Phil Owen leading New Covenant Church to the south and my buddy Jason Raitz doing ministry to the west and Hopevale Church to the north...
There are many, many great churches out there. We know that it takes all different flavors of churches to reach all different flavors of people. Life brings another flavor to the mix; that's what we're trying to communicate in this tv spot.
- Great Film Company. We went with a trusted friend to film and edit our tv spot: Josh Phillips at Breaking Level Films in Caro, Michigan. I've worked with Josh many times over the years and trust his judgment and care. He's also extremely fast - - the time we filmed to having the finished tv spot in-hand was exactly 24 hours!
- Repetition. This tv spot will air many times over the next two weeks. The heaviest rotation comes next week when it airs in the mornings during the Today Show, in the afternoons during Ellen, local news, etc. We used nearly the same script as our radio spot to create continuity.
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How to do a Radio Spot for Your Church Plant
There was a stretch last year when I worked at FamilyVideo to make ends meet.
I purposely asked to train in the Saginaw location so I could immerse myself in the culture of people who don't always like going to church.
Late at night, the young adult staff I was working with would crank up the radio to blow off steam while shutting the store down.
Know what Top 40 station they always chose? 102.5 WIOG. I took a mental note then and there that if we moved forward on starting a new church in the Great Lakes Bay Region, THAT was the station to advertise on and enter their world.
A year later, our radio spot will hit Nate and Rachel in the Morning everyday for the next two weeks leading to our September 16th kick-off. Radio is a great tool for introducing people to your church plant (which will eventually introduce them to Christ). If it's good enough for Billy Graham, it's good enough for me.
Here's how to do a radio spot for your church plant.
1. Advertise your church plant on the popular, modern, Top 40 station. Why did we choose the #1 Top 40 station? It flows out of our vision: Reach the Lost at Any Cost. If you advertise on a Christian radio station, you will attract Found people. Remember the Apostle Paul's approach: he always went to the center of the marketplace to point people to Christ.
Radio is a great modern-day equivalent.
2. Contact the station, double-check their demographics and reach, get their rates, and push that you're a non-profit. Sometimes the station can receive a tax write-off for lowering their advertising rates for your church plant while saving you money. In our case, it helped that our church has no paid staff right now, thus freeing up funds for these spots.
Remember, YOU care the MOST about your church plant, not the salesperson!
3. Don't say yes to the first advertising package offered. Do your homework. Negotiate. Shrug off any high-pressure sales tactics. Remember, YOU care the MOST about your church plant, not the salesperson!
4. When writing your spot, research, research, research! Listen to other church radio spots for ideas. What's their pace? What's their delivery? What's their style? Steal what's good. You don't need to reinvent the wheel; the same Spirit is at work!
Don't wing it.
5. Write out your script and practice it. Listen, I'm professionally trained in improvisational-comedy and even I didn't wing it in the recording studio. You never know how you're going to feel when you're standing behind the studio mic and the tech guy in his AC/DC tee is staring at you with a timer in his left hand.
6. Don't use a "Radio Guy" voice. Imagine the microphone is a window you're speaking through to someone on the other side. Radio is a relational meduim. It's about creating warmth and relationship. Imagine you are having a conversation with that mom rushing her kids to school or that young dude making a Slurpee-run to the 7-Eleven. For what it's worth, here's our spot:
7. Say the name of your church website as many times as you can in 30 seconds. Don't worry about service times, don't get hung up on trying to cram every detail about your vision and values into your 30 second spot. Your goal is for your listeners to take that next step of checking out your site. Repetition makes it stick in their mind.
8. Have fun! Don't take yourself seriously! Enjoy the process.
BONUS: When buying the ad time, ask to personally meet the DJ whose show you are advertising on. Smile, share your elevator pitch for what you're doing, and offer to do a studio interview with them sometime. Who knows - they might give you free air time to talk about your passion!
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Make sure you sign up by this Sunday night...
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