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Thanks so much for joining us today for the unSeminary podcast! Today we have with us Jared Hogue of Creative Sheep, whose mission it is to resource churches with high quality video and graphic design content. They do custom work and pre-packaged content to allow churches to enhance their services.

Jared also works with Adore Church in Boston, but he previously worked with Church on the Move in Oklahoma. Today Jared talks with us about his former work with Church on the Move, and how he worked to raise up leaders in the ministry.

• Equip the ministry. // Jared shares that those of us who work in ministry have a job to equip the body of Christ. He refers to Ephesians 4:12, which states, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Creative Sheep’s mission is to equip the people who have a gift inside them to further the ministry and help them pull that gift out to do good work. This is true in all aspects of the ministry, from children’s leaders to pastors, and Creative Sheep works toward that goal. Jared’s work with Church on the Move focused on this same idea.
• Start with the people you know. // Bringing together these people to further the ministry and equipping them with the knowledge they need won’t happen overnight, and it didn’t for Church on the Move either. There was a process and system in place that stemmed from Ephesians 4:12. Jesus’s ministry started with Jerusalem, then Judea, and finally the outermost parts of the earth. A friend of Jared’s pointed this out to him as a strategy that Jesus himself used. You start in “Jerusalem” with the people you know, and move out from there.
• Create a system to find the gifts in ministry. // Church on the Move’s work started with volunteers on their team by inviting them to lead a game in the kids’ ministry. This allowed the volunteers to get comfortable being in front of a crowd and speaking into a microphone, hearing their own voices through the speakers and guiding others from the stage, but the pressure wasn’t on them. If they messed up, it was okay and didn’t ruin the game. From there, the volunteers moved on to telling a bible story or an offering talk. Finally, the third tier was to have the volunteer deliver an illustrated sermon, which was a message they would give in front of a crowd. This created a three-stage process that gradually led the volunteers into becoming more comfortable speaking in front of crowds and delivering messages to the group. It also allowed the team overseeing the process to give feedback during each stage, making little suggestions for incremental growth.
• Expand internship programs. // Church on the Move has an aggressive intern program. Jared worked with the Kids on the Move internship, which was a much more creative and art internship at that time. They worked to expand that to allow others who weren’t comfortable with the creative side become more involved. Through those changes, the ministry grew and brought in people who were more interested in the pastoral side of ministry. It followed the same basic system to create leaders within the church. Jared suggests that those interested in working in ministry and the pastoral side should start in kids’ ministry. You can learn so much in kids’ ministry, and as Jared says, if you can teach kids, you can teach anyone!

You can learn more about Creative Sheep and what they offer at their website www.thecreativesheep.com. You can get in touch with Jared at  [email protected].

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Lightning Round

Helpful Tech Tools // Google Drive, Dropbox, Basecamp

Ministries Following // Life.Church

Influential Book // Halley’s Bible Handbook

Inspiring Leader // Craig Groeschel

What does he do for fun // Hanging with family, ice hockey

Contact // [email protected]; @jaredahogue on social media