[Having trouble viewing the video above? Click here.]

Sunday comes every seven days.  It’s relentless! Every week we have to find ways to communicate the message of Jesus in a fresh and relevant way.  Every seven days we have to find a new way to move people into community.  Every weekend we have to leverage the time and talent we have to reach the people God has put in front of us!

Over the last 10 years it’s become increasingly normal to leverage video within our church services.  I remember when we first started using video clips from movies … it felt like we were breaking some sort of rule!  Then we started using video to introduce the message and added a countdown clock at the beginning of our experiences.  It was all so much fun!  Now we have to produce this stuff all the time … it’s become a part of our new liturgy. 

But producing new media elements regularly is time consuming and expensive.  What if there was a way to add new elements cheaply and quickly!?  There are places online that will sell pre-done media elements for churches for around $10-$25 … but they don’t often match closely with the style or language of your church.

A couple years ago I bumped into Fiverr.com and I’ve been amazed at what’s available on this site time and time again.  Fiverr is a marketplace of digital entrepreneurs from around the world selling various products and services for $5. It could be your answer to add elements for this weekend’s service at a super low price.  The big idea is that service providers have developed customizable content that you provide your input to and they will modify the offering and send it back to you.  It’s perfect for announcements, a message opening or other small transition pieces for your service.

Check out some of these projects … and start exploring to find something you could use:

• Youth group doing an urban missions trip? [Send this provider text about it and get this great looking video announcement.]
• Doing a message about faith being a journey? [Send this provider some quotes and use this as a message opener.]
• Asking people to sign up to volunteer on your website? [Send this provider screen shots of your website and some text and use this video to explain how easy it is.]
• Looking for a hand drawn “explainer” video? [I used this provider to make the video at the top of this post.]

Again … everything on this site is just $5.  It’s an elegant way to “outsource” some creative development for your church.  I’ve been happy with the projects that I’ve used Fiverr for.  Each listing tells you how long until the provider will be able to deliver the content for you and also includes some “up-sells” if you want to add some more creative flare to the project.  I’ve used Fiverr in some fun ways over the last year to add a little “surprise and delight” …

• I had this puppet professor to talk about our staff meeting culture at Liquid and then emailed it our staff.
• I sent a postcard from Vatican City, Rome that looked like it was from the Pope as a thank you to a volunteer.  It was a huge hit. 

Explore Fiverr and see what you can find!  I’d love to hear if you end up using the service in your church.  It’s an interesting way to leverage global creative talent to assist you.  I’ve talked about outsourcing the past in my articles on VA’s but I anticipate that this trend will only continue into the coming years!