I know a church in Virginia that doubled their distribution of CDs in one week simply by adding strategic locations for their media ministry. They increased the distribution of weekly CDs from 200 to 400 by making sure that there were banks of CD duplicators stationed at every exit. These duplicators rapidly make duplicate CDs of the message that was just preached so that everybody can pick-up a few copies as they leave. This way folks can hear the message again and then share it with others while it is still fresh on their minds and hearts. On the other hand, I know a church in Pennsylvania that has a couple thousand people in attendance every week but has a limited amount of CDs being distributed because their distribution center is in their church bookstore. What is bad about this is that the bookstore only holds about 15 people and folks don’t want to crowd in there after the service. They just think to themselves that they’ll pick up the message some other time, which unfortunately often times doesn’t happen. What is really ugly is when there are lots of obstacles in getting a copy of the message. I was in a church once that made it very difficult to get copies of the message. I had to ask a few different people where I could get a copy of the message before I was finally directed to a person with a sign-up sheet. Then I was told I had to wait until the next service for a copy of that message. By that time I lost my excitement to hear it again and share it with others. I really appreciate Pastor Cook in Florida who regularly hands out life-changing messages on CD throughout the week. Then he consistently relays his experiences to the congregation to build excitement in them to also hand out messages. He boldly tells the congregation that hundreds of copies of the message will be available right after the service so that everybody can take a few to pass out through-out the week. That’s a pastor who takes his job seriously, to feed the sheep and equip them for ministry.

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  • Checking out "Media Ministry- Location Matters!" on KingdomInsight: http://ning.it/pAgL7O #church #ministry #outreach #Jesus #Jesustweeters #twurch #teaparty #tcot #revival #outreach

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  • Johnny,

    Thanks for your comment.  ;-)

  • GREAT POST, Pat!  Thank you!
  • Pastor Eakins from Springfield MO told me recently that their church has been distributing over 3,500 messages every week! These messages are traveling to other states and bringing many to Christ. After receiving a message some folks want to hear more of his preaching so they go to Pastor Eakin's website and begin to regularly download his messages to be heard on their I-pods, MP3 players and in their cars. Pastor Eakins only has a few hundred people in his church but he is now discipling about 20,000 people every week! This is how many people are downloading his messages due to the people in his church being so faithful to give away thousands of messages on CD and tapes through the years.
  • Dave,
    Thank you for your beautiful testimony! Listening to biblical messages over and over has also helped me to grow so much as a Christian through the years. Unfortunately, I think many Pastors don’t understand the importance of promoting the idea of meditating on their sermons by listening to them repetitively. If they did, many more would stop charging for sermon copies and would take vital steps to ensure that all the people in their ministry would develop this practice of making the most of every opportunity to regularly listen and internalize biblical principles in their lives.

    Romans 12:1-2
    I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
  • Matt and Pat,
    I really appreciate your addressing the HOW of getting out message duplications. The obstacles and the successes you mention are real eye-openers. Not to divert the conversation in a different direction, but to add to your direction, I'd like to mention something about the WHY of message duplication. In speaking with many pastors across the US about multiple listening to sermons, they just don't see the importance of WHY it should be done.

    I can give you a good WHY right out of my life. For most of my life I was a nothing Christian, just riding along from salvation to death, not really making ANY difference for the Lord. Up to now our society has made it very comfortable to coast along. I figured that being born again, the beginning of being a Christian, was also the whole of being a Christian. That after rebirth, all I needed to do was wait for Heaven to happen. How sad (and stupid). But praise God, He has ways of turning up the heat to make the comfortable VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. In one of the darkest and most hurtful times of my life when I'd lost everything and everyone, I learned the lesson of multiple listening to messages. Our problems are usually multi-layered, and God usually deals with them in layers. God brought several VALUABLE messages my way and they immediately gave me the answers I so craved. As I listened to them over and over, the deeper layers of meaning in the messages answered the deeper layers of my problems. Like eating a steak, the outside has one taste, but the inside has a sweeter, juicier taste. Or like drawing bucket water from an old-time well. The water on the surface is one thing, but the water from deeper layers is sweeter still. God opened layer upon layer, line upon line, and precept upon precept in the messages He gave me for answers. I learned that when we meditate on a singular Bible verse or passage, the Holy Spirit opens deeper layers of meanings. The same thing happens when we listen multiple times to a message.

    Words fail to express the pitiful condition of my former spiritual life. Nor can I find the words to accurately describe how I'm now "walking in Heavenly places with Jesus." Before, I was the person caught in the severe ups and downs of the roller coaster of life. Now, I can watch the world go up and down right beside me and I'm unaffected. Listening to messages multiple times has given me both the MEMORY of what I shouldn't forget in my daily walk and the MEANING of what I need to live to stay in Heavenly places.

    If only every pastor in the US would understand the WHY of message duplication, they'd know that solving every obstacle of the HOW is nothing in comparison.
  • The church building in which I meet (we're all the church, so to say 'the church I attend' would be incorrect) used to only give out CDs by having people fill out a little form on the bulletin and drop it in a 'Sermon Box'. Then the sound techs would make a copy and deliver it. We moved maybe one copy every two months.

    Over the last few months I have been working to expand our audio ministry. Now, we have a small kiosk in our fellowship hall (where most everyone goes after the service for coffee/tea, and a snack while they fellowship). Our CD distribution has now gone to 2-3 out every week. We are still under where we should be for a church our size, but we are expanding the ministry and educating people on what they need to do.

    We are about to place out first On-Disc printing order from Kingdom, complete with professionally printed CDs. When this order is through, I will be putting an insert into our bulletin to educate people on our CD media ministry.
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