We’ve been turning up the heat on the interactions with the media this fall. A big part of the vision of Liquid Church is to “take church to the people” . . . we know that people are consuming media all the time and we want to take the message to them through those channels.
Give away $30,000 = Boatload of coverage!
Earlier in the fall we gave away $30,000 on a Sunday morning. [Watch the message.] This was a part of a series that was driving to “simplicity & generosity”. Basically we were asking people to consider the resources (affluence and influence) that God has given them . . . and how to be stewards of those resources.
This story ended up getting beyond us! It really did end up getting picked up by bunch of different sources:
- New Jersey 12 was the first station to the pick up the story . [The start of the snow ball.]
- CNN Morning Show with TJ Holmes [Watch it now.]
- The Daily Mail in the UK! [Our first international pick up.]
- ABC News ran the story on their website. [ABCNews.com coverage]
- Channel 7 in Australia’s “Sunrise” (We kept calling it “Good Morning, Australia!”) [G’Day Down Under!]
- “You & Me in the Morning” // Chicago morning chat show. [Watch Tim & the Ladies]
- Over 2,300 websites. [A bunch of web chatter!]
- Over 150 TV Stations and dozens of newspapers!
Pay it Forward . . . Virtual Choir
Although the Reverse Offering was the “big story” this fall from a media’s point of view . . . we have kept a “drip campaign” continuing rolling with the media. We’re moving to the point were we want to release stories on at least a monthly basis. I’ve been über happy with how this coverage has been rolling out as well!
- Our efforts to mobilize volunteers to help with Hurricane relief got compared to Occupy Wall Street! [Helping people rather than beating drums and pitching tents.]
- NJ’s Oldest Newspaper covered our rebuilding efforts. [NJ Today Article]
- K-Love National Radio with a quick rotating spot about Liquid. [Listen in]
- Even some Christian media picked up our story about a special media piece we’re doing on Christmas eve. [Virtual Choir?]
- Georgia’s Times-Herald gets in on the Virtual Choir story. [Peachy coverage.]
- Our largest “social media maven” coverage so far . . . a dude with 100k followers invites people to join us! [Social coverage is here to stay]
- Plus about another dozen newspapers and hundreds of web hits on these stories. We’re gaining some traction!
Just looking for good stories!
This week we’ll pull a part some of the lessons that I’ve been learning as we make a concerted effort in this area. We’ll give you some practical tools to help you turn the heat up on your media coverage as a church.
But it probably begs the bigger questions . . . Why? Our culture us shaped by media. We want to shape the media’s perception of the people of Jesus. We want to shine a light on the fact that Jesus is making a difference in our lives and is moving us out to make a difference.
The media isn’t biased against the church or the things of Jesus. They are just normal people looking for good stories. All the people we’ve interacted with . . . from student reporters from the college newspaper to producers on intonational media properties . . . are just looking to tell a great story and are crazy busy trying to tell a lot of them every day! They just need you to make it super easy to tell the story. Rather than thinking the media biased again “the church” . . . maybe the church is biased against serving the media so they can do their job?
What about your church and the media? What have you learned in interacting with the media over the years?
Come back on Wednesday were I will give you the one thing you have got to do right when pitching your story!
