📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

💸BUDGET & TIME FRIENDLY DESIGN PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw

🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100

https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

DESCRIPTION

Welcome back to our four-part series on budget-friendly design options for youth pastors and church leaders! In this third installment, we're diving deep into Adobe Express and comparing it head-to-head with PowerPoint and Canva. We'll help you make an informed decision on which platform suits your ministry's design needs best.

🎨 Adobe Express Tutorial: Our onscreen tutorial will walk you through the essentials of Adobe Express, showcasing its powerful features and user-friendly interface. Whether you're a design novice or a pro, you'll find valuable tips and tricks to enhance your youth ministry materials.

💲 Pricing Comparison: Budgets matter, and we know that! We'll break down the pricing structures for Adobe Express, PowerPoint, and Canva, helping you understand which option aligns best with your financial resources.

🤔 Verdict Time: After a thorough exploration of these three design platforms, we'll deliver our honest verdict. Discover which tool offers the best value, efficiency, and creative possibilities for your youth ministry projects.

🔗 If you missed the previous episodes in this series be sure to catch up on them here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw

Don't miss out on this informative and practical guide to enhance your youth ministry's visual presence. Hit that subscribe button, like, and share with fellow youth pastors and church leaders looking to level up their design game on a budget.

Stay tuned for the final episode in our series, where we'll unveil our top design recommendations and bonus tips to supercharge your youth ministry materials. Let's make your ministry's message shine with creativity and impact!

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/065

//ADOBE EXPRESS
http://www.express.adobe.com

//ADOBE EXPRESS PRICING
https://www.adobe.com/express/pricing

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-00:57 Tool #3 Adobe Express
00:57-03:17 Why Graphic Design Even matters for Student Ministries
03:17-06:41 How to Get Started Using Adobe Express Online
06:41-12:45 How to Create a Graphic on Adobe Express
12:45-15:53 How Much does Adobe Express Cost?
15:53-18:55 The Verdict: PowerPoint vs. Canva vs. Adobe Express

✍️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

Nick Clason (00:00):
In this third part, we are continuing on in our journey of fast and affordable options for youth pastors, ministry leaders, and just overall busy people attempting to create great graphic design for free or for super cheap. And in this video, we are going to be exploring the world of Adobe, not Adobe Photoshop Illustrator or in design, but the free version of it called Adobe Express. Make sure you hang out for this entire video because we are going to be doing an onscreen to tutorial. We'll be sharing the pricing and I will be doling out my final verdict between the three different platforms that we've been looking at in the past video in this playlist, PowerPoint versus Canva versus Adobe Express. Hey everybody, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. Well, hey everyone, if you and I have not had a chance to meet before, my name is Nick Clason.

Nick Clason (01:01):
I am a 12 and a half year youth ministry veteran now located in the D F W Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I'm on a mission to help make hybrid ministry not just in-person and not just digital, but the melding of the two easy possible and accessible for everyone in youth ministry or church ministry. And I believe that it is the wave of the future, and part of that is creating good and crisp and interesting and fun and relevant graphic design. However, if you're anything like me, you're busy, you have curriculum meeting and budget plannings, and you have meetings with your supervisor, your senior pastor. You have that parent who's kind of cranky and mad, and you have a teaching lesson that you have to prepare tonight. And yet still you need to somehow create graphics, graphics for series, graphics for events, graphics for upcoming missions trips or camps.

Nick Clason (01:52):
And you don't know anything about graphics. You don't have any graphic design skills. Well, good news, this playlist is for you because in the last two videos, we looked at PowerPoint, we looked at Canva, and now we're looking at Adobe Express. And the reason that any of this is valuable, the reason that any of this even really matters is because Generation Z is spending more time on their smartphones than any other generation combined, more than any other device combined. Meanwhile, they're also consuming social media at alarmingly high rates. For example, gen Z and Alpha are spending in 90, 95% of Gen Z Engine Alpha are spending time on YouTube alone. It is the most widely used social media platform that there is. And so digital, social and online ministry matters not as a replacement, but in addition to what we are also doing in the room.

Nick Clason (02:46):
And part of that is designed. So if you're interested in understanding what every youth ministry needs to do, which is create a robust, dynamic online presence, go ahead and check this card out right here where I share that and make sure that you check out the surefire resource link in the description to that video, which is my completely free one month posting tool for social media. But let's dive in and let's look at Adobe Express here on this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. All right, so Adobe Express is adobe.com/express, and if you go there, it will pull up this menu. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening, I'll try and explain it my best just in the podcast feed. But if you're watching on YouTube, you'll be able to see my screen here and on Adobe Express or adobe.com/express, right across the top, there are different menu options.

Nick Clason (03:44):
So the first menu option there is create. And you'll notice here you'll see social media, and then it has all sorts of different social media options. So Instagram story, Instagram reels, posts, TikTok video, Facebook story, et cetera. You got documents, posters, brochures, invitations, certificates. And then you also have marketing options like business cards, flyer, logo. Additionally, right here you have a content scheduler. We're going to look at that in just a second. I'm going to open that in a different tab so I don't lose it right here. But if you continue across that menu here, you have your quick actions, you have removed, background, resize image, convert to jpeg, P N G S V G, crop convert to gif, trim video, resize video, create P D F, export, P D F combined, P D F, which that's actually really useful stuff. I usually have to do that just in PowerPoint.

Nick Clason (04:37):
More templates, social media templates, marketing templates, documents, and then plans and offers. This is where you would explore pricing, pay for pricing, do all those types of things, and then finally learn and explore. So to tutorials, blogs, developers, partners, all those types of things. And so this is just a high quick overview of Adobe Express, but what I want to do now is I want to actually dive in and I want to create a graphic. Before we do that though, listen, I know we're just getting started, but I would love if you would like rate, subscribe, maybe even share with a friend if you have gotten value so far in this video. And if not, hang out because I'm going to drop some more value because what we're about to do is right now is we're going to create a graphic on screen. I'm going to show you just how easy this is to do.

Nick Clason (05:23):
So to hang out for that, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, and let's look at the Adobe create express tutorial. So before we dive into that, I did want to see this scheduler. Full disclosure, I've never used this to open this before, so I'm going to be exploring this with you for the very first time live here on screen. So here's a little tutorial thing, but it looks like you can connect your social, so you can connect your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, which is now called X, I don't know why no one's changing that anywhere, Pinterest and then LinkedIn. So what you don't have is YouTube, and what you don't have is TikTok. I recommend YouTube as my number one strategy for youth ministries and reaching teenagers. And so unfortunately that's not on here. I also recommend TikTok is my number two, so my top two aren't on here as far as schedulers, but if you're in the lane where you're not going to do Instagram or I'm sorry, if you're not going to do YouTube or TikTok, then this might be for you. So check this out, and what would be cool is you could actually create right here in Adobe Express and schedule right here in Adobe Express. So there's just something kind of fun, a little bonus tip for you. So here we go. Let's dive in to a live onscreen Adobe Express graphic tutorial.

Nick Clason (06:43):
All right, so let's pretend that you have a dodgeball tournament and let's just go with that as our event. And we're going to go ahead and create onscreen a live dodgeball tutorial. And so what I'm going to be looking for is I am going to be looking for something that's going to work for my screen, so I'm looking for a wide screen idea. So let's see, we got different social media, different marketing, so let's go presentation. That is going to be what we're going to be doing in our event. It's going to be on the screen. And so you have all these different sort of prebuilt tutorials. You can just see, you can explore them, and I'm just pick one here sort of willy-nilly, but I think actually, I think I'm going to start with a blank presentation. Completely blank, nothing going on here. Now, part of my problem is I need to resize it, so I know it's going to be for the screen, so that's 1920 by 10 80 and resize.

Nick Clason (07:47):
There we go. It's resized. I can go over here. I can see different themes, and so yeah, I can choose an entire kind of color scheme. And so let's see, one of these red ones is going to scream dodge ball to me. I don't love the green in that because to me dodgeball is red, but let's go. Let's see if I search red if I can find something. There we go. Yeah, okay. All right, so now I got my theme and I am going to add some media, and so let's search just in here and see what we can get. Dodge ball. There we go. Boom. Let's see if I can remove the background on that somehow.

Nick Clason (08:43):
I'm not sure what I just did there. I'm doing that. There it is right there, right? Remove background, boom, and it's thinking and it's gone. Cool. Now here's some different effects. Those are for different colors. Here's some different adjustments. I'm looking for a drop shadow. I love me a drop shadow. Let's sharpen it. Blur it. I can also animate it, which if I was doing this for a website thing, I could animate it or a social media thing, I could animate it. But for a live onscreen graphic, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much value there's going to be to animating it because it's just going to be on onscreen.

Nick Clason (09:34):
I'm trying to find, like I said, I'm trying to find, oh, there we go. Shadow. Yeah, I don't know if we're doing anything with this, but it says there's a shadow there. Dunno if that actually is. So anyway, there's that. We're going to switch our background color now because yeah, because kind of losing it there. So I'll make it big, a little off screen, and then now I'm going to add a text and my text is going to say, oh, there it is. I got to add it right here. Dodge ball. We're going to just see what, we're going to see, what fonts we even have available here. I mean, look at all these right here. I also have this section right here called More Fonts. I could check that out, but I'm looking for something big, bold, something that looks kind like, there we go. That'll work.

Nick Clason (10:41):
I'm do that. I'm going to give it a big old white outline, some drop shadow. I always love me a good drop shadow, changing the color of that tube black and all right, so dodge ball, I got that. And then I'm going to do, I'm going to add another text that just says tournament That fill is going to be white, no outline. I'm going to make it italic, but first I want a new kind of font. I like that one a little bit and pull that in on top of it and boom, now we're done. So there you go. I'm not sure how long that was, probably five-ish minutes, but you can see just how simple something like this was. And so when I'm done with it, now I'm ready. All I need to do, I got all my layers over here. I got the ball, I got the texts, I can adjust them, right their order.

Nick Clason (12:12):
So now I pulled that behind the dodge ball so that now it's behind the dodge ball if I need to do something like that, but I'm ready to go, and so I'm just going to hit download, download for P N G or for jpeg. Either one of those would work for your screen and then you click download and you're good to go. Right now it's in my downloads folder. I'll just take that and drop it in my presentation software. Boom, we got slide for our dodge ball tournament. That's how simple Adobe Express is. Let's dive in into the next section two pricing. All right, so you might be asking, okay, that looks like an amazing tool. Isn't it super expensive? And the answer is not really. So for free, for $0 and 0 cents a month, you get the free plane, which includes all the core features listed here.

Nick Clason (13:03):
It's on the screen, you can read it, but you can explore Adobe Firefly powered features like text image, text effects, features like drag and drop, import and enhanced PDFs, thousands of professionally designed static and video templates and design elements, animation presets to add motion to text, photos or design elements, limited collection of royalty, free Adobe stock photos, all these other things. You can see that you get all of that as well if you're willing to pay 9 99 a month. There's also a free trial, so feel free to check that out if that's something you're interested in. But you get a little bit of an upgrade when you go pay for it, obviously. So you get an entire collection of 195 million on-trend royalty-free Adobe stock collection, photos, videos, and music as opposed to just a limited one as they say. You can also stay in sync with Linked Photoshop and Illustrator assets if that is something that you're using.

Nick Clason (14:01):
And here's the thing, if you are already an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber or user as I am, you already have access to the paid version. You have unlimited posts scheduling to Instagram, Facebook linked in Pinterest, and more. You can do a brand kit with logos, colors, and fonts for consistency. Stay in sync, like I said, and libraries to organize, share collections. You in the free version, get access to a thousand Adobe fonts in the paid version, access to over 25,000 licensed Adobe fonts, plus a hundred gigs of storage to keep 15 plus hours of video footage. So as you do as in most cases, you have a little bit of a better option there with the paid version. If you are already an Adobe Creative Cloud user, or you work at a church that already has an Adobe Creative Cloud license, maybe you work in a big church and they have a marketing or communications department that is already paying for Adobe.

Nick Clason (14:59):
Most bigger churches or most places that have a lot of graphic work to do are using Adobe Creative Cloud in some way, shape or form, whether it's for video, whether it's for text, whether it's for logos, whatever the case might be. And so they might even be willing to share with you just a little spot on their membership so that you can get access to Adobe Express and you don't even need all the other things in the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. So that could be an option as well. If you're in a small church and you're like, I do not have the budget, they have the free version, so make sure that you go check that out. But in the next video, in the next, not video, but in the next section, I'm going to be breaking down my verdict between PowerPoint, Canva, and now Adobe expressed which one is the best and which one should you as a church ministry leader be using?

Nick Clason (15:53):
Alright, the verdict is in PowerPoint versus Canva versus Adobe Express. Which one is it? Here's how I would rank them. Personally speaking, I still love PowerPoint. And then in my journey, you heard, if you watch the first video in this playlist, my journey went from PowerPoint to Photoshop, so I love PowerPoint and I also love the Adobe Creative Cloud and everything within there. The one that I haven't used really at all, because I was a PowerPoint user before Canva was big, and then I jumped over to Photoshop when Canva started really taking a rise, and I never really spent my time on Canva, so I am the least versed in Canva. However, I'm also not that well versed in Adobe Express. I'm going to tell you the truth, the tutorial I just did, that's the second maybe third graphic I've ever actually made in Adobe Express, so I was kind of putzing around in there too.

Nick Clason (16:49):
It feels very much like Canva. Both of them feel very similar, but here's how I would rank them. I would probably rank, and it's going to differ based on everyone's context, but I think Canva is probably number one for me, not personally, but just with knowing what I know and the features and the fact that every nonprofit has the option to get Canva Pro for 100% completely free. I think that has to be number one. I think number two for me, ironically, is probably going to be PowerPoint. I still think that has some of the most powerful features. And then third is going to be Adobe Express, because I think you get the least for what you pay for. That being said, if you're in a church that has a subscription to Adobe but not Microsoft, then maybe Adobe would jump in front of Microsoft for you, or vice versa, because we talked in the very first episode that maybe you don't have access to a paid version of PowerPoint, and you can use Google Slides.

Nick Clason (17:46):
Google Slides is fourth on my list. It's probably the least powerful of all of the tools. But my point in sharing all of this is that every single one of these is free, has a free version or is very, very cheap, and they are not requiring you to jump on a massively big learning curve like Adobe, Photoshop or any of the things in the Adobe Creative Cloud to learn them because they're just so different than what you're used to. PowerPoint, Canva, and Express are all relatively easy with relatively easy interfaces, and you can figure it out, and it's not going to make you spend a lot of time or make you spend a lot of your resources to use it. But the last little hack that I have for you in this four-part playlist series is the Instagram Stories editor. So that is going to be our next video. It's linked to your onscreen. Make sure that you check that out before you do hit the subscribe. Hit the bell button if you found this video helpful because we will talk to you next time making digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible. Don't forget to stay hybrid.

📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

💸BUDGET & TIME FRIENDLY DESIGN PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw

🎥LEVEL UP YOUR YOUTUBE GEAR FOR UNDER $100

https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

DESCRIPTION

Are you in need of a fast and affordable logo design for your youth ministries? Look no further! In this ultimate guide, we will unveil 4 creative tools that will help you create the perfect logo without breaking the bank. Whether you're leading a youth group, organizing an event, or starting an outreach program, having a captivating logo and graphic design is crucial. It not only represents the identity of your youth ministry but also leaves a lasting impression on your target audience. So let's dive into the world of logo design tools!

In this episode is the world's worst kept secret, it's Canva! Canva also has a FREE for Non Profits section which is great for churches, youth ministries and non-profit organizations that are working on a budget!

The First Tool was: PowerPoint
📹 Watch Here: https://youtu.be/fOIPiPW3Wpk
🎧 Listen Here: http://www.hybridministry.xyz

Explore these 4 creative tools and let your imagination run wild.
FULL PLAYLIST:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIdZ-RLm5uVVlHj46FKrMYw

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "1 Month Done for You Social Media Posting Tool"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

👉 STAY CONNECTED
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/064

//CANVA FOR NON PROFITS
https://www.canva.com/canva-for-nonprofits/

//NICK'S 3 FAVORITES:
•QR Code Generator
•Typecraft
•Smart Mockups

//PROS & CONS OF CANVA
https://digitalscholar.in/pros-and-cons-of-canva/#:~:text=A.,available%20features%20and%20design%20elements

//CANVA PRICING PAGE
https://www.canva.com/pricing/

//LINKTREE
http://www.linktr.ee

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-01:16 Tool #2 Canva: Making Graphics for free and cheap
01:16-03:26 Good Graphics are just a click away, go check out Canva
03:26-05:27 How to navigate Canva after logging in
05:27-09:52 How to Edit Using Canva as a Beginner
09:52-11:54 What else does Canva have to offer?
11:54-15:05 Canva Pro FREE for Churches!
15:05-19:32 The 3 Most Underrated Features of Canva
19:32-22:02 Top 4 Limitations of Canva

🕰️TRANSCRIPT
Try Transcribing for Yourself at Rev.Com
rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

Nick Clason (00:00):
Are you a busy youth ministry pastor or leader, your're calendar full of parent phone calls, curriculum planning, event planning, angriest, senior pastor, or maybe just normal senior pastor meetings. And so your schedule is busy, your budget is tight, but you still want to have dope custom off the chain, amazing graphics for your social media, or maybe even just for the screens in your room when you meet with your students. Well then look no further than this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show where we are going to be talking about everyone's favorite web-based design platform. You know it as Canva, and you've probably heard of Canva and seen Canva before. But in this episode, I'm going to go through the depths and show and share with you everything that Canva has to offer. I'm also going to do an on-screen design tutorial to show you just how easy it is.

Nick Clason (00:54):
And finally, make sure that you stick around to the very, very end of the video because I'm going to share with you my top three Canva features that are not as widely known, but can be incredibly useful for you in your student ministry and on your social media and in your web presence. So welcome to this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. Well, hey there everyone. My name is Nick Clason. I am a 12 and a half year youth ministry veteran. I have been designing graphics since I was right straight out of college, straight into student ministry, and these were what some of my early on designs looked like. And so I know how bad I used to be, and these now are some of the ones that have replaced them within recent years. And I don't say that to brag. I simply say that to say I have no design skills.

Nick Clason (01:46):
I didn't go to school to be a designer. I went to school to be a youth pastor. But once I got into it, I realized I needed to have designs that looked good, that made sense, that spoke the language of my teenagers, and I didn't know what I was doing. I was just trying my best. And in a lot of cases that might be, you might be sitting there knowing you need them, knowing you want them, you've seen them done online or in other places, and you're like, I want that, but I have no idea how to create that. Canva is your answer. Now, full disclosure, I just about two weeks ago got a Canva Pro account, and I'm going to share with you how you can do that and also show with you or show you some of the features of Canva and what it has to offer.

Nick Clason (02:33):
The nice thing about Canva is the learning curve is really, really low, much lower than a product, say like Adobe Creative Cloud, which has things like Photoshop and InDesign. And so Canva can help you create and thrust into having a strong digital presence. And if you're sitting here thinking as a youth pastor, now why do I even need this? Listen, I believe that every youth ministry in America needs a strong digital presence, and I have linked that right here at the top of the video. I have a video completely about that. So if that's something that you're interested in, hop over there. Make sure that you check out what every youth ministry needs and why they need a strong digital presence. But if you're here for the graphics and if you're here for Canva, let's hop in because Canva is going to be a great step in that direction.

Nick Clason (03:23):
So let's first talk about what does Canva have to offer. All right, so if you log into canva.com, you can head over to the side panel here and it'll look something like this, and you'll see that it has this folder called projects. That's where you would go and look at all of your recent designs. It will hold and have folders for things. If you're on a team, that's where you would find other graphics done by other people that are using them. Maybe you can hand this off to an intern or a high level student or an admin who can also help dabble in it. You can get a team account and they'll have the folder section, the design section. They'll also have images that you have or have been using in the past for different designs and different projects. Now, here's what all Canva has to offer as far as it pertains to the template section.

Nick Clason (04:14):
So these are the different headers. They have business, and then under there they have docs, presentations, flyers, graphics, calendars under social media, which I'm about to do tutorial here in just a quick second. They have Instagram and then they have post stories reels, Facebook post covers ads. They have your stories. They have TikTok videos, they have Pinterest pins, LinkedIn video ads, animated social media, Twitter posts. If this is something that is interesting to you, I want to let you know that you can subscribe to this channel because we are going to be going over all kinds of different tips to tactics and ways to help you lean into the hybrid version of your student ministry for both online and in person. So match that subscribe button so that you don't miss a future video at all that continue to have education, grade subject resources. You can literally break it down by grade, kindergarten, first, second video, video, 16 by nine, Facebook, video, video messages, mobile videos, video catalog, YouTube videos, feed ad videos, and they have marketing with flyers, logos, posters, print products and cards and invites.

Nick Clason (05:20):
So let's hop in and let's do a quick design Canva tutorial. Let's check it out. All right, so if you are watching on YouTube, which by the way, if you're listening only to a podcast, want to encourage you, hop into the link in the show notes, check out our YouTube, our TikTok, our Instagram. We are on all those places. But right now for this YouTube tutorial, I got my computer in my lap. If you're watching, so you're seeing it, you're also seeing my desktop right here is what it looks like, or at least the website I'm on. And this is Canva. This is what it looks like. And so I want to show you just how easy it can be. So if you log in, hit on templates, we're going to click social media and let's do an Instagram reel if that's something that you're interested in.

Nick Clason (06:02):
They have all kinds of different templates here that you can choose from. And so I'm just going to pick one here kind of arbitrarily, and let's do this daily vlog one right here. Let's click customize this template, and then we are off to the races. And so there is a background there that we have the ability to swap out if we want to. And so if I select it here, I can boom, delete it, just like that. And so now I want something different. I want someone typing. And so typing texts. Let's see what we get here. Oh man, here's all kinds of different social media based looking things.

Nick Clason (06:44):
Here's a phone one. So let's add that. I like that one. We're going to pull that sucker in. I can make that wider if I want. I can make this phone. I can make this phone a little more off screen if I want. Put it right here. And I can edit this text right here. So I can say, go check out our most recent hybrid ministry episode about editing in PowerPoint. Boom. That was our last episode, link in the show notes if you are interested in that. But boom, here we go. I can change the duration here. It's currently at five seconds. Looks like I can add some notes. I can do a little transition. I can play it and see how it is. Now there's not a lot of, oh, here's the seconds right here. So if I want to make it longer, I can make it longer.

Nick Clason (07:49):
I can animate things. So if I wanted this text right here to do something, I could have it merge in like that. I could have it come in that I could have it look like it's being typed out. I like that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to have this one do something, some sort of animation. Let's have, yeah, let's have it rise up. We'll make it a little bit quicker. You can change the direction that it does that, right? So up, down, top, bottom, I'm just going to do from the bottom, I can exaggerate it like that, kind of like that one. And then I can add effects to it while it's just sitting there, right? It can pulsate, it can flicker, it can wiggle. So do all those. And then there's my little preview. I can click download and I'm good to go. So I think if I were to click share, I can share this with in my group. I can copy it, I can download it, I can print it. So yeah, so let's go ahead and download that sucker so that I have it.

Nick Clason (09:10):
MP four, boom, downloading, so you can see just by that. Oh, look, and they give me a little thing to tell me just how great my design was. Now, as you can see, Canva has a ton of different features to offer. I made that little tutorial in, I don't know what you're watching, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes. Not too long. And I was distracted because I was trying to talk and communicate with y'all. But here's the reality. There is so much that can be accomplished and completed just through the utilization of Canva. I want to make sure that you can know this and see this, but make sure that you hang around to the next point, because this next one might be one of my favorite points of all time. So beyond templates, right? They offer a branding section. So if you are a nonprofit, you can import your colors, import your logos, import your church youth group design.

Nick Clason (10:03):
They have all kinds of different apps. And if you click on that page, it'll show you trending apps. It'll show you new apps, it'll show you productivity apps. It'll show you design apps, share and publish, and then content planning, which is one of my favorite features. And you can do content planning for Instagram, for Facebook. If you're on Twitter, slack, Tumblr, LinkedIn, you're probably not in any of those bottom three. But if you're on one of the top two, you probably are. But here's the deal. I love planning. Speaking of planning, I have a completely free ebook to help you with your content planning in your student ministry. And here's the fact you can use Canva to help supplement some of the things that I'm going to recommend that you use because most design things like this are stock and static. And so you're going to have a page full of stock and static resources, and nobody wants to have an Instagram page full of just stock and static resources.

Nick Clason (10:53):
This is good, this is helpful, this is useful. But what most of us are looking for on social media and what your students are looking for on social media is an opportunity to contribute in some customization. And so I have 40 free student ministry ideas. You can literally copy and paste each of these ideas because while they're the same, they also offer new ones. And so in the description, a completely free ebook, one month worth of social media posting ideas, and then you can use Canva to filter in some of the gaps and some of the holes that my social media planning calendar is going to leave if it doesn't fulfill and satisfy every single day's worth of content for you in your ministry. But let's move on because I'm sure I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, wait a minute, doesn't this just cost a ton of money, like a resource as powerful as Canva that has to cost a lot of money?

Nick Clason (11:50):
Guess what? You are in for a surprise, my friend. Check it out. So if you look at the Canva pricing, of course, they have Canva for free. And so that's going to allow you, I'm going to pull my computer back up here so I can read it from that far away. But Canva for free will offer you drag and drop editor for easy customization, 250,000 plus free templates, a hundred plus design types, a million plus free photos and graphics, AI powered design tools like Magic, right? Magic design, magic edit and more. Invite others to design and work with you as well as a wide range of principle products and to design and get delivered to your door. And five gigs of cloud storage. That's completely for free. However, if you upgrade to Canva Pro, that's going to be 1499 per month for one person. Everything that I just read that was included in free as well as all these other features here, you can read them for yourself.

Nick Clason (12:48):
If you're on YouTube, it's going to be on the screen. If not, hit the link in the show notes, go check out this section on YouTube. And then finally, Canva for Teams is 29 99. It's a plan for two plus people. You get everything in the free feature plus all these other features that they have listed here. Again, onscreen link in the show notes, but bigger teams love the fact that you have SS, S O I S O certification, compliance cloud storage, up to one terabyte. You can pay as you grow. You'll be able to reconcile costs for anyone who's joined before each billing cycle, so you're not locked into your team size. But here's the good news, and you may know this already, but Canva Pro is free for churches and nonprofits, which is probably the best feature for any one of us in student ministry because you and I know that we don't have budget to pay for any of this type of stuff.

Nick Clason (13:41):
We need a full on communications team at our church. And if you're in a small church, you are the communications team, but your church can get all the Canva Pro features for free because it's a nonprofit 5 0 1 C three. That's incredible news. So you simply jump on a Canva, click on the pro feature in the menu, and you apply for nonprofit status, takes a couple days, and then boom, you are ready to rock and roll. In the meantime, you can utilize all the Canva for free features as you're waiting for them to approve your pro status. So here's what I don't know. As I was designing that we have a Canva Pro account because we are a church and we applied for it. We went through all the work. So the templates I might have used, if you're using it in free, the template I might've used may not be available to you.

Nick Clason (14:29):
However, once you're in pro, you don't have to worry about those things. If you see something cool, if you've see an animation that you like, you don't have to wonder. That's a pro version one. I don't have that. I don't have the budget. That's one of the best things about Canva is it offers it to churches completely for free. So you got to check that out. But hey, in the next section of the video, we are going to be talking about my top three favorite that I found on Canva that are a little bit undercover, a little bit under the radar, a little bit off the beaten path, but they're going to be amazing for you and your student ministry, and I'm going to tell you how you can utilize them in the next section. Okay. My three favorite resources that I found, the first one was this.

Nick Clason (15:08):
If you go over into the app section, they have a free QR code generator. I love using QR codes. I remember when they came out in college, nobody wanted to use QR codes. Then I remember when the pandemic happened, I recommended a QR code to our student ministry because I was living in Chicago, and this is what they said. They said, you have to think about how you can get information in people's hands without handing them anything or touching them. And I was like, that is everything that goes against what I've ever known to be as a youth pastor. And so I proposed, Hey, well, what about a QR code that might work? And the communications team said in that moment, and I quote, we will never use a QR code. Fast forward to two weeks later. And what was on the screen? That's right, a QR code.

Nick Clason (15:53):
I'm not saying I take credit for it, but it was my idea. In the original inception, communications team was anti QR code because for years, QR codes were wasteful and not really a good woven in part of our fabric. But honestly, the pandemic ushered in QR codes and our phones adapted. When I first had to use a QR code as a kid in college, I had to have a special app called QR Code Reader. But now my camera does all the work, so I just pull up my camera, shoot it at the QR code, and then a link pops up on my camera. I'm sure that you can relate to that as well. So QR code's, one of my favorite ways and things to use and push information to students. We use 'em in a couple of different settings. In our ministry, we like to have tables.

Nick Clason (16:37):
It incites some chaos as they're listening because some people's backs are to the stage. But on the tables in the middle, we have a little tabletop sign holders and whatever we might have, announcements wise, camp signups, all sorts of things. I can put a QR code there. A student can shoot that and they can go to whatever that announcement is. Another place that we use it is in our cafe. We have little napkin holders, and it's got a little slot for just some announcements. And so I just have a static standing graphic that says, Hey, we're social. And I drop in my QR code, which takes them to a link tree, which is a free website that you can utilize link for that in the show notes if you're interested. And then I dropped all of our social media handles in there. So it'll pull open like link tr.ee/cross creek students, and then it'll have YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all of our different things so they can follow whatever they want.

Nick Clason (17:29):
And that just lives there in our cafe on that QR code. At any time, Canva has a free one, which right now, honestly, I'm currently paying for one, and I'm going to have to keep paying for one because I use it in all kinds of different places. And to swap that out is going to mean I have to swap out all the print things and all the other areas that I've sent out information about our code. But Canva has a free one, so check that out. The second resource that I love is their type craft. So you can bend type, you can warp type, you can twist type, and I am not very good at that. On the design side, I know it looks cool. We just designed and dropped these shirts at the beginning of summer right before camp that said, hello Summer, that's got a wave and warp views on the screen if you're watching on YouTube.

Nick Clason (18:14):
And we had to send that out to Fiverr and have someone create it for it. But right here, I just discovered that Canva offers it. And so if that's something that you're interested in, which it's super hot, super in right now, talk to your students, they'll tell you. But if you want to know how to do that, you know how to make it, you can utilize that type craft tool. Again, that's in the apps section of Canva. And then finally, they have this thing called smart mockups where you can use smartphones, desktops, and laptops in your design just like I just did. But they have a whole kind of app or tutorial where you can pull in a phone and then you can drop in your own custom content. So for example, if you have a student ministry website and you want to point people to it, you can bring that phone in, drop a photo of what your student ministry website looks like into that phone, and then create a graphic around that saying, Hey, if you ever want to take a next step, head to this website at such and such website.com.

Nick Clason (19:11):
And then that phone or that mobile or that tablet will be able to display what that website actually looks like when and if someone actually heads there or shoots QR code to take them there. Now let's talk the final piece about what are canva's top limitations, because that's always going to be a thing with a tool like this. Alright, so according to digital scholar.com, they wrote a blog on this. I'll link it down below in the description if you want to go read it for yourself. But essentially what I pulled out were what I thought are the four biggest problems or limitations that you might experience as a pastor, church leader, ministry leader. The four of them are this number one canvas style, right? So stock images are great, but ultimately they're still stock images, which is why I think you should grab my ebook on how you can bring customization in your students and your leaders and yourself to your social media presence as opposed to just a bunch of graphics about it.

Nick Clason (20:09):
40 free ideas in the link in the description. Limitation number two is templates. They just have a limitation on their templates, especially for the free version. There's just really not as much and they're not as good as the pro version, obviously. And so that's not going to be an issue for you. If you're a pastor or church leader, you're able to use that for free because of Canva's ability to give that to you for free. As a nonprofit and the exporting side, you are not going to have as much control on the exporting, again, like R G B versus C M Y K. That may not matter to you as much. You may not even know what those things mean, but there is just a certain level of what you're able to do. If you do a big old poster and you export it, it may come out pixelated because it's not as crisp and clear and you just don't have as much power in creating how big you want to export it and all those types of things.

Nick Clason (21:00):
And then finally, creating unique design elements cannot really happen in Canva because they're already pre-created for you. So honestly, the single greatest, in my mind, the single greatest platform for creating unique design elements falls under the Adobe Creative Cloud umbrella. It's expensive. People often shy away from it because of that. It also has a massively steep learning curve. But what you might not know is episode number one of this series was that we offered PowerPoint as a free or budget design tool canvas number two. Our third video is going to be Adobe Express, which is their free version of it. So that is video three coming up next, which will offer you the ability to have unique design elements. So if you're interested in that, click the video here on the screen or these other videos here, and we will make sure that we talk to you next time. We're making digital discipleship easy and accessible, so stay hybrid.

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DESCRIPTION

Are you in need of a fast and affordable logo design for your youth ministries? Look no further! In this ultimate guide, we will unveil 4 creative tools that will help you create the perfect logo without breaking the bank. Whether you're leading a youth group, organizing an event, or starting an outreach program, having a captivating logo and graphic design is crucial. It not only represents the identity of your youth ministry but also leaves a lasting impression on your target audience. So let's dive into the world of logo design tools!

Our first recommendation is PowerPoint or Google Slides. Yes, you heard it here first. You can create stunning graphics through a program like PowerPoint, and if your church doesn't pay for PowerPoint, you can pivot over and utilize Google Slides for absolutely free.

The 2nd-4th Tools are available in the next videos in the playlist where we'll uncover the world of...
•Canva
•Adobe Express
•Instagram Stories Editor

Explore these 4 creative tools and let your imagination run wild, as you craft a logo that truly

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
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🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products
//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

AUTO POD
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📓SHOWNOTES
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http://www.hybridministry.xyz/063

//FREE COMMERCIAL USE PHOTO BACKGROUNDS
http://www.unsplash.com
https://shop.churchmotiongraphics.com/landing/free-stills

🕰️TIMECODES
00:00-00:51 Doing Graphic Design on a Budget
00:51-06:07 Tool #1: Powerpoint is a mostly free optionf or youth pastors to do Graphic Design
06:07-13:36 Objection Your Honor: Powerpoint is not a design tool!
13:36-16:05 The Shadow Side of Powerpoint: What it cannot do
16:05-17:27 Tool #2: Canva

🕰️TRANSCRIPT
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Nick Clason (00:00):
Are you a youth pastor or a youth mystery leader looking to make incredible, amazing graphic design, but you don't have the skill the know-how, and you're also not looking to break the bank with your budget? Well, in this video series, we are going to be looking at four incredible resources that will not only save you time, but are also going to save you money. You can make some of those amazing crispy graphics using these completely free resources and make sure that you hang out and that you stick around all the way to the very end of the video. Because not only are we going to help you level up your design in this video, but I have a resource that will help you level up your design and then implement it into your social media. And I have a sure fighter resource in the description to help you with that as well that we're going to be dropping at the very end of the episode.

Nick Clason (00:50):
So make sure that you stick around. Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. If you and I haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Nick. I'm a youth pastor in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and I've been in youth ministry going on 13 years. And when I started in youth ministry, I made graphics myself. I started completely from scratch with absolutely no idea of what I was doing. These are some of the graphics that I used to make, but more recently, these are some of the graphics that I have come up with. And I've never taken a design class. I have simply just hacked my way through learning one little technique at a time. And so in a lot of ways to go from this over here to this, it took a lot of just work time and time again putting the reps.

Nick Clason (01:37):
In fact, in our most recent video we talked about fonts. And fonts are one of the key things that can level up your design going from the default install fonts of the things on your computer to taking some stuff that have been created by designers and implementing that into your design. So if that's something you're interested in, make sure you check out our most recent video on fonts. But in this video, we're going to be talking about a completely free tool for most of us that is going to allow you to really level up your design. And that tool that I'm talking about is PowerPoint. Now, you might be thinking PowerPoint, what I thought you said it was free. Now, first of all, the caveat is PowerPoint's free if your church will pay for it. And here's the good news is most churches are still loving themselves, some Microsoft office from the 1990s. And so most churches have a subscription to Microsoft Office and PowerPoint. But don't worry if you don't have access to PowerPoint, Google Slides, which is completely free through Google Drive and using the Google Suite offers most of the same functionality that PowerPoint has to offer. So what I was early on in youth ministry, like I said, I was creating some of these graphics, but I started realizing that PowerPoint did have some limitations. And so we'll get to those in just a minute. But the limitations were not

Nick Clason (02:59):
Me to do some of the things that I was wanting to do. And honestly, what I would do is I'd get into PowerPoint and I'd just putz around and I'd fiddle around and I'd learn different things and I'd learn different tools that the resource had. But I would realize, man, there's some things that are just not hacking it for me. And what I did was I started going to my church and I was like, Hey, listen, great, I love PowerPoint, but can I please upgrade to something more? Next level. And honestly, the next level thing in this is Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects. Those are for video and stuff. By the way, I have a complete playlist on leveling up those skills if that's something that you want to do. If you want to go to the next level, I have a complete playlist of how to learn those crash course from beginning to end.

Nick Clason (03:48):
Check that out in the description. However, my church didn't let me upgrade. They were like, no, we're not going to do it. We need to be good stewards. We need to be good managers of the money that God has given us. And they wouldn't let me upgrade my software from PowerPoint. And honestly, PowerPoint wasn't even a software that they gave to me. PowerPoint was a software that I inherited because our church was a member of the Office Suite. That's just what, and every church I've ever been to since then has always had a Microsoft Office membership. They use Outlook, they calendar through Outlook. They use Microsoft Teams. I personally dislike Microsoft in so many ways. I am a Google person if I can do it. I like to use docs and sheets and slides. But the one thing out of all of Microsoft, I prefer Gmail to Outlook.

Nick Clason (04:51):
I prefer Slack to teams. I prefer Google Docs to Microsoft Word. I prefer Google Sheet to Microsoft Excel. But the one thing in the Microsoft Suite that I actually like and that I actually use is PowerPoint. And I think that it does offer some incredible functionality. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about that because when I was denied my ability to move on to Photoshop and the other programs that I wanted to, it forced me to stay in PowerPoint. I worked at that church for five years. It forced me to stay in PowerPoint and keep learning and making it the best that I could make it, even with the limitations that it did have. And so if you're looking to level up your design skills for free, and you already have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your computer or you don't, you can jump over to Google Slides, you can do a lot of graphic design stuff with PowerPoint, and I'm going to show you how and show you some of the unique and individual features that exist in a PowerPoint file.

Nick Clason (05:52):
So let's check it out and let's dive into ways that you can level up your design skills for mostly completely free if you have PowerPoint already installed or if not, you can jump over to Google Slides and do most of that same stuff there. And let's look at some of the features that it has to offer. So you might be thinking like isn't PowerPoint for presenting slides? And at its most basic level, yes, and I think that's a lot of the reasons why people don't think that PowerPoint can actually be a design resource or design tool. But in its most basic form and its most basic level, everything is built into layers, which similarly is what Adobe Photoshop is built into. So if you have a circle and a square, you can have the square go over the circle and it can be on top of the circle.

Nick Clason (06:38):
So if you put any sort of thing into PowerPoint, you can change the order of the way that it lays out. So one thing can be on bottom, one thing can be on top. You can send something to the back, you can bring something forward. And so in addition to that, once you get things going, you can change the design canvas. And so honestly, listen, here's a little tweak. Here's a little hack. But in most cases, when I am creating a P D F, I bring it into PowerPoint. Here's a little tweak, my completely free resource. I designed every individual page of my one month ebook that I'm giving away. By the way, link in the show notes. I designed all the individual pages in Photoshop, but then I saved those as JPEGs. I brought them into PowerPoint, then I exported it from there. As a P D F, it's one of my favorite little tools, one of my favorite little hacks.

Nick Clason (07:33):
If your church runs off of pro presenter, which is what a lot of churches are running off of, I bring everything into PowerPoint. And then when I export it, I click file save as jpeg and save all the slides in the slideshow as a jpeg. And then doing that caused everything to be in a jpeg. It drops it into a folder perfect for PowerPoint or perfect for Purpose Center, I should say. You give that folder to your tech team or you bring it over to your computer and you just command a control a select every file in there and drop it into prayer presenter. So it's a great tool to do some design stuff, but it also can help take you to the finish line of your presentation moment right before you get up to speak in youth ministry, right before you get up to present.

Nick Clason (08:19):
That's how you do it because most people aren't presenting in churches anymore, at least the ones I've been in the last 10 years aren't using PowerPoint anymore. They're using something like pro Presenter to be able to more seamlessly integrate their songs and their worship and videos and all those types of things. And I think that Pro Presenter is a great tool, but PowerPoint helps you get it to a pro presenter ready state. So you can format things, you can edit the sizes of anything in PowerPoint. You can make text boxes, you can make it big for the whole screen. You can make it smaller. You can adjust the font size. So it gets up, it gets down. And just like in our last video with the fonts, if you have different fonts installed, this is where in PowerPoint you can play around with different fonts format where they are.

Nick Clason (09:02):
You literally just click and drag. Like in Photoshop, you got to go over and find the layer. You can in PowerPoint, you literally just click your cursor on the text box that you want, you move it, you adjust it, you put it exactly where you want first. You get over, you design your slide sides and formatting. You create your background. You can create the background, then apply it to the entire slide, the entire slide show. And then every single slide after that can have that exact same background. Or you can insert an image and have a different background or a different feel or flavor or flare to every single thing. You can adjust the background, you can increase the opacity, you can make it darker. You can drop shadows in the words. There are a lot of powerful tools. And so if you just think I did, I need to upgrade to Photoshop.

Nick Clason (09:49):
Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing things in Photoshop that will help you level up your design. And I'm going to get to what some of those PowerPoint limitations are. But you can do a lot in PowerPoint and frankly, it won't break the bank because you're probably already paying for it. And again, if not, go see what Google Slides has to offer because it can offer a lot of the same things. And then the third thing is it's not going to kill you on time. It is not a massive learning curve. It's pretty straightforward. And the difference, if you've ever edited a graphic in Microsoft Word, that will hate you and you will hate it because you'll move something and it'll reformat all the other words and you just got this jumbled mess. But PowerPoint is a lot more intuitive. It's you move one layer and it does what you think it should do when you move it.

Nick Clason (10:39):
And after I moved away from that church and moved to a different church, I did in fact get the Adobe Creative Cloud, obviously as I've been using it. But since then, that was about eight years ago, seven years ago. I think at this point, PowerPoint has introduced a lot of actually new features that I really liked that it didn't have before. So one of the features, for example, that I didn't really wasn't able to do was a lot of times you'll see graphics with things cut out. So if you have this picture of me right now and I cut around myself, that's a PowerPoint thing. Or I'm sorry, that's a Photoshop thing. You cut out layers, you cut out the background, it's just me. But now you drop a image into PowerPoint and they actually have a remove background type of feature in PowerPoint. It's not that great.

Nick Clason (11:31):
There are some limitations to it. It just doesn't look as crispy sometimes as a Photoshop thing, but it does have it. And so if you have a subject on a completely white background or something that's really obvious, it's really easy to tear that out. Another feature that I love that I use all the time is when I am teaching the Bible and notes, a lot of times I will underline things and they have a draw feature. So you go in, you can create, select your pen style, pen size and then color. And then you just go and you just click draw and you just literally annotate right there on the screen. And what it does is it creates that underline or circle or whatever. It's just an individual layer. So you can make it bigger, you can make it smaller, you can copy and paste it onto the next slide if you like, the formatting and the size of it.

Nick Clason (12:15):
And so those are all new things that have come about in the last few years that I really like about PowerPoint that I actually use a lot. Also, don't forget that if you are going to go find different backgrounds, a couple of different websites that you need to know about the links to them will be in the description or the show notes. But unsplash.com is a completely free royalty free website that you can get graphics and photos that people have taken. You can use that. Also. C M G Create is church motion, graphic website with backgrounds for worship. But they will also give you their stills, like the still graphics of the motion graphics away for free. So if you're looking for a good background, check those websites out. If you're looking for fonts, don't forget the video that I talked about last week because fonts is one of the keys and graphics.

Nick Clason (13:05):
And then to just bring those two together from either cmg create in Unsplash, and then the fonts put 'em together. You can do all of that in PowerPoint. And so that is why I love the resource of PowerPoint so far. Listen though, if you've gotten value out of this video, I would love to encourage you to subscribe, share with the friend and turn on the notification bill so that every single time we drop a new video, let's move on to talk about the limitations, the downside, the shadow side of PowerPoint. So you can create things in PowerPoint, obviously, as we've been talking about. And then when you go to export it, you can export it in just about any file that you want imaginable. Now, however, when you bring a subject into Photoshop, for example, if you were to bring a picture of me right now into Photoshop, cut me out, I could export that with a transparent background, and then when I go to pull that up and open later, it will not have, the background will not exist.

Nick Clason (14:08):
So whatever background, if I were to go to Unsplash and get a mountain background and then bring me into that, I would be in front of the mountain background. You can cut me out in PowerPoint, you can export me in PowerPoint as a P N G, which is the file format that you're going to need to do to not have the background. However, whatever that canvas is in PowerPoint, it will still be there. Okay, so if there's a white background, I can't get rid of that white background because PowerPoint is still a presentation software first and foremost, and that's the way they're thinking. Again, bad Microsoft. And so that's one of the limitations. That's one of the things that caused me to really try and push for getting is that the end of the world in youth ministry graphics? No. And if you're just a youth pastor just trying to get by and you're like, bro, I just don't have time.

Nick Clason (14:58):
I don't want to learn how to do a whole new thing in Photoshop or whatever, dude, I get it. Totally. All right. But that cutout tool is one of the things that really levels up Photoshop or if you want to create circle graphics and just make a circle and then the rest of it be transparent around it, you can create a circle graphic in PowerPoint. You can make a circle. You can format the background of that to be like a picture, like a mountain picture or a gradient picture or whatever you want it to be. But there's still going to be the white around it, whatever the slide size is, that slide size, that white, that doesn't go away. And that's one of the major, major limitations in it. That's one of the key things that doesn't allow it to be a absolutely next level feature.

Nick Clason (15:42):
Also, it does have the remove background feature, but like I said, it's just, it's not as crispy as Adobe. And so like I said, if you are ready to make the investment, make the jumper, you already have link in the description of our Adobe, both Photoshop premiere and editing and Premiere for long form and short form videos. All that three part playlist in our series, make sure you go check it out. So PowerPoint is a really powerful tool. It is one that you can use anytime all the time. And if you're just looking to get by, you're like, Hey, we're going to play dodge ball and I guess slide for dodge ball. You can get in there, you can find a cool font, you can go find some dodge ball, like clip art or a dodge ball style background on Unsplash, and you can create yourself a Dodge ball graphic, drop it in pro presenter, and you are good to go.

Nick Clason (16:31):
And it is going to be quick, fast, seamless, and easy, and I want to recommend that you check it out. But if you're looking for a super duper powerful tool that is going to be Canva, and guess what? Here's the deal. Canva is the next video coming up, so I want to make sure that you guys check that out. They offer the pro version to all nonprofits for completely free. So we're going to show you how you can go ahead and get that. So make sure you click that link right here in that video. Also want to let you know that if you're just like, man, why do we need all this for youth ministry? We want to help you level up not only your design, but also your social media. So check this video out, why every student ministry needs a strong social media presence. And be sure to grab the ebook with a link in the description, and we will catch you next time. We're making digital discipleship easy and possible. Don't forget to stay hybrid, subscribe, share with a friend, and we'll talk to you next time.

Follow along at http://hybridministry.xyz
Or come hang out on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hybridministry

TIMECODES
00:00-04:34 - Intro
04:34-13:07 - Why Email and Social may not satisfy the on demand world we live in.
13:07-18:39 - Is Social Media worth it in your church?
18:39-27:09 - Big Events are for the Ego of the Pastor, not the People
27:09-27:50 - Outro

SHOWNOTES
http://Nucleus.Church

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
What up everybody? And welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason, this morning solo pod from my new house in Dallas, Texas, and my guest bedroom closet because, uh, none of my stuff is in the house yet. And so every single place I go is gonna be echoy and the least echoy place is the guest bedroom closet. As best as I can tell, you'll have to let me know, cuz honestly, you're on the hearing side of this. I'm on the talking side of this. And so, uh, this is my best attempt. Um, I've mentioned it in previous episodes, Uh, gonna be a solo pod today. Uh, both me and Matt are actually in the middle of moves. Uh, we, my wife and I, uh, we got a little bit of a jumpstart on him and his wife, and so they, I believe his truck is maybe coming today.

Nick Clason (01:07):
Um, and so anyway, so today on this episode, I wanted to just chat about a couple of hot takes. Um, three in particular. I wanted to do three hot takes. And number one, I wanted to talk about how we now live in a more on demand world and how social media, um, or email marketing may not be the best way to approach some of that on demand world. Wanted just chat through and brainstorm some stuff with you guys. The second hot take was, um, social media might not actually be worth it, um, in your churches, uh, if you do some of these things I'm gonna talk about. And then number three, I think that big large scale events are actually more for the pastor's ego than for the actual people who are going to be consuming them. So we'll dive into those a little bit, um, here in just a second.

Nick Clason (02:04):
But like I said, uh, just a quick like, update. So when, when we got this sucker up, up and rolling off the ground, I, uh, recorded, uh, pre-recorded five podcasts. And so I had five in the queue before we ever even launched episode one. With all the hustle and bustle moving and just the absolute impossibility has seemed for Matt and I to be able to coordinate our schedules. Um, I am now recording this episode one day before it will release tomorrow, Thursday morning, October 6th. And so, um, I to keep things rolling, to remain consistent, my goal is to give you something every single Thursday morning. Um, it's, it, you know, I'm just letting you know like that. That's sort of why, like, I could wait and Matt and I could get on the same page, but we're gonna miss a couple posts. Um, and so I'm gonna keep bringing you guys some stuff.

Nick Clason (03:02):
Um, and when life settles down for the both of us, we will make this happen. But like I said, I'm on the tail end of a move. Um, my family and I rolled into town last Friday, closed on a house here in, uh, Fort Worth, Texas, uh, to start a new job at church in the DFW metroplex area. Love it. Super excited working with, um, former boss of mine who, uh, so it's, you know, it's a great ex experience, um, and also feels incredibly familiar even though I'm in a new church. I'm in a similar youth ministry environment, so that's really exciting. Um, and then Matt's actually gonna be stepping into a different role as well, and I'll let him talk a little bit more about that. But his first, uh, day on the job is actually gonna be in Spain. And so, uh, who knows, you know, how soon we'll be able to be together on the podcast again.

Nick Clason (03:56):
But our goal is to continue to bring something to y'all, um, and continue to bring both of our voices. I I'm not a gigantic fan of these solo pods. It feels like just a lot of rambling into an empty microphone with very little feedback, pushback, conversation. Um, but I'm gonna do my best in learning and I'm trying to make it something that is gonna be worth everybody's while. So without any anymore explanation for all that, um, I'm just trying to give you a little quick update, some housekeeping stuff. Uh, I wanted to dive into a couple of ideas. So let's go, let's make this happen. All right. Idea number one, we live in an on demand world. So is social media and is email marketing the most effective way to communicate? Think about this. Uh, we live in a Netflix as opposed to a cable TV centric world.

Nick Clason (04:54):
10 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago, the only way to consume your favorite TV show, if you wanted to watch Seinfeld, you had to tune in on Thursday evenings at 8:00 PM I'm not actually sure if that's true or not. Actually, what I do know is true is the Office, right? Every Thursday night, sometime between eight or 9:00 PM I remember, cause I was in college and we didn't, we weren't, um, allowed, We were at a Christian university. We were not allowed to have, uh, televisions in our room. And streaming, um, was available, but it wasn't available until the next day. And so the only way to watch the office at my Christian university was to go find a lounge with a tv. The lounges were allowed to have TVs and cable, uh, or satellite, but none of the rooms were. And so Thursday night was on demand viewing opportunities.

Nick Clason (05:48):
People would come in and flood the lounges. It, there was literally not a seat in the house. If you wanted to sit and watch the office, you had to get there a couple of hours early in the anticipation of it. And you probably had to sit through the NBC Nightly news and you probably had to sit through a couple other sitcoms like community or something like that before the office ever even came on. Now, I compare that to the idea of the way that Disney Plus is releasing things. Like if I wanna watch the newest episode of She Hulk, I can get up at three o'clock in the morning the day that it releases and watch it from the comfort of my own house. But in the fact that I've been moving and traveling and I took my family to Disney World last week, two weeks ago, like, I'm not caught up on She Hulk, but I will, I'll get caught up on it or Stranger Things, right?

Nick Clason (06:38):
When Stranger Things comes out, it is a all day viewing experience. It is an on-demand, it is a binge worthy experience. Uh, so much so that Netflix has recently adjusted the way that they released it. And so they released it now in two different parts. Now, I just wanna think about how that behavior there, the Netflix versus the cable experience, how that behavior has changed the way that we as humans, um, expect to consume content, right? Like, think about it. I, in a Netflix world, I want information when I want it. How many of you in ministry have sent some sort of email newsletter and then you still get the question from a teenager or a parent, Hey, when is the deadline again? And you're like, I communicated this. Like, this has been so clear, This has been so obvious. The reason why I think is when you send it to them, you're sending it to them in a, a cable centric mentality.

Nick Clason (07:47):
Like, I will send you this email every Tuesday at 9:00 AM That's if you are even that discipline, a lot of us, we're not, we're not sending emails with that amount of consistency and regularity, and I don't know that I'm ready to abandon the whole email idea, But what I do know is that we don't live in a cable TV centric world where Thursday night at 8:30 PM is on demand, uh, must watch tv. Very few people live that way. And that's gonna be the same way with your emails. And that's gonna be the same way with your stage announcements. And that's gonna be the same way with your social media announcement posts. And so how do we switch to a more on demand way to consume content or way to find community? Again, I think another beautiful example of this is joining a small group outta church.

Nick Clason (08:44):
I think a lot of churches have the small group process basically be, Hey, if you wanna join a small group, go talk to Carl. And then Carl plays matchmaker. And I like, if I want to sign up for a small group, I wanna just go browse the available options and I wanna sign up for a small group. You may call that consumer of me, but I, I actually appreciate it in and like to anticipate the control or the ability that I have to make that happen on my own. I, I will, if I'm finding a new veterinarian or if I'm finding a new doctor, if I'm finding a new dentist, if I'm finding a new counselor, like I prefer to find those things by going to those people's websites and creating my own appointment. Like one of the things that I absolutely hated, this may be the millennial me, I don't know, but when I was looking for quotes to move, um, I would find these websites and they're like, click through here to get an instant quote.

Nick Clason (09:49):
And I was like, Oh, awesome. And so I put in on my info, you know, four bedroom house, this estimated amount of stuff, whatever. And then they would say, Awesome, your quote is ready. Call one 800, whatever, whatever, whatever, to get your quote. That's not on demand. No, it's not. No. Now I have to talk to a customer service representative. And the problem is that the, when the default is you, hey, you gotta talk to customer service representative. Yes, I'm not trying to hit away from the, uh, talking to other people the importance of that, right? We know that human connection and human conversation is important, but what I am trying to say is we can, we live in a world and we have tools, digital tools and things that can make it possible for people to find those resources and come to that on their own.

Nick Clason (10:41):
So how can we do that in churches? What are ways that we can make that happen? A couple of ideas I have, I talked about this a couple podcasts to go where I said, Hey, here's what I'm pitching for my new church. Um, create a central hub strategy. And I don't wanna take any sort of credit for this. Like Brady Sheer and the guys over at Pro Church Tools, they have been preaching this for years. And they have, they have a website tab, boot nucleus, uh, called nucleus.church, check out their product and you can build your own central hub style website where, and it's a, it's super easy to edit. It's one of my all-time favorite website editors. Uh, but b it looks so good, it's so sleek, it's mobile friendly. Like that is, that is where you can, um, send emails still and send social media things, but you can direct and drive everything back to the website where it's consistent every single time.

Nick Clason (11:33):
And you're saying, Hey, for more information, head to fill in the blank. And that creates, um, that puts the, that puts the onus back on the user. And you're saying, Hey, if you want this information, if you want it on demand, if you wanna watch it like you consume Netflix, here's where to go. And that, what that does then is that makes it the impetus beyond you or on us as the church leaders to make sure that those websites are updated. I think more often than not, the um, the, the website is one of the last things that we think to edit. And I think in this new world that we're moving into, and in this on demand world, websites almost need to be the first thing that we edit. It's interesting, like I said, I'm starting a new job, but with an old boss and just before him and I both left, um, we were both working at, at my last church, I was like, we need to, we need to tighten up the website.

Nick Clason (12:30):
And he said, Ah, I, he's like, I always think of the website as a last, last ditch effort. He's like, But you're right. We need to switch. We need to make that first. And so here we are now in our new gig and he asked me yesterday, What's your, what's your digital strategy? Do you have one? And I said, Yeah, but it's gonna be contingent independent on the website. And you know, if you're a pastor or you work in church ministry, you know how this is, right? And I said, So that, that requires us to have a conversation with communications and get them on the same page cuz we're, we're, uh, dependent upon them to kind of get some of this stuff that we want flushed out, finished out. All right, take number two. Social media is not worth it unless you're willing to try some new things.

Nick Clason (13:22):
I think a lot of churches are just doing social media as an announcement extension. And man, I would just say if that's all you're doing with social media, just keeping the ship afloat, just doing things because it's what you feel like you should do need to do. Everyone else is on social media. They're telling you to do social media, but you're really, you don't have anyone invested in it. You don't have anybody tracking it. You don't have anybody watching the metrics to see what's growing, what needs to be having port gas pour onto it, what needs to be cooled and slowed and changed. Who's watching trends? Who's listening to the Pro Church Tools podcast? Who's listening to the Hybrid Ministry podcast to stay up to date on what's going on on social media and to you, like, as a church, you have to be willing to try things that are gonna be different because social media, digital ministry is a new way to reach people.

Nick Clason (14:19):
And I think it's effective. And so I I would actually push back and say, I do think it's worth it, but I, but the reason I don't think it will be worth it is if you're, if you're just gonna stick it on autopilot. I think there are very few ways to, uh, post and, and do social media type things without, um, being willing to be a mold breaker, without being willing to take some risks, without being willing to rethink some of the old ways of doing things. A lot of the traditional methods on social media are not effective anymore, right? Like when, when right now, um, the entire focus on all of social media is discoverability, right? TikTok brought into this, brought into us this advent of finding content from people that you don't know. And so when people at your church, um, want to follow you or your account, uh, but you're posting reels or tos, things that are needing to be discovered by hopefully them, but also other people, like what are you gonna do?

Nick Clason (15:33):
Like, how, how then what's the call to action out of a real, out of a TikTok, right? Like, and so we gotta figure out as church, um, digital hybrid marketing people what our win is and what the purpose of doing it is, because it is, is just a really bad announcement extension. Like it can be that, but it's gonna be pretty lame and it's gonna be pretty ineffective. And people are really not on social media now. Um, or I, I should, I should watch what I say. I was gonna say, people are not on social media to follow people that they're friends with, and I don't think that's true. Um, but I think that the most popular form of social content right now is to consume videos, short form videos in particular of people that you're not friends with. Like when I'm on TikTok, I spend 95% of my time on the four UAB and I'm only over on the friends tab to clear that pesky red notification.

Nick Clason (16:43):
And then if I'm over there, I might see a video or two of some friends I follow and then I'll, or I'll see a few videos in a row of friends I follow and I'm like, Huh, this is crazy. Or friends I know like my sister and my friend Isaac. Um, and then I'm like, Oh, that's cuz I'm on the friends tab. Of course back over for you, right? Like, I don't know about you, but that's how I am behaving with it. And so I just, what I'm saying with this is, I'm not saying social media's not worth it, but I am saying you gotta be willing to take risks. And I think if you're unwilling to take risks or you don't have somebody who's willing to take risks and, and look at your individual church data, I don't know that it's gonna be worth it.

Nick Clason (17:28):
I don't know that it's gonna yield for you the results that you're looking for. Sure you can post some stuff, you can have some announcement adjacent stuff and you can just do some, you know, Facebook page type things. But, but is it really gonna be worth it? And are we really like gonna see the results that we're looking for? So get out there, break some stuff, stuff, try some stuff, be creative, be willing to take risks and don't put the breaks on your creatives or don't put the breaks on the people who are interested in this because listen, like this avenue in particular is going to be, um, the way and wave of the future and the way that you've been doing church and particularly the way that you've probably been doing social media is not gonna be what's a part of the next wave.

Nick Clason (18:18):
So let somebody who is comfortable with taking risks and comfortable with trying things, let them go fly, try and do some things, um, and don't get stuck in a rut and don't get stuck on autopilot because when you do, that's when things become far less, uh, interesting and far less effective. I take number three today in our final one. Big events are for the pastor, not the people. All right, now hear me out on this one, right? I think that a big event, filling a giant room is really a win for the person on the stage because it helps the pastor. And I'm a pastor and I would agree with this, it helps me feel successful. I look out across the landscape of the room and I say, Man, there's so many people here. Look how effective this event is. Look how many people are here.

Nick Clason (19:16):
I think the reality is though is that man, we really like, we are seeing a shift away from that like big event idea and that big event desire. Like we actually just, uh, talked to some of our juniors and seniors last week at the church I'm in. And um, you know, the church I'm in like, is, man, it is, is much different than the, the church as in before church as in before, is very, very much in a post-Christian world. Now we're in the Bible belt. Um, but what's fascinating is these students who are Gen Z are basically saying the same things. And they said like, we don't, we don't need this like, big event. It feels very, um, like almost forced, like what we want really for like our friends. Like we wanna just like invite them to like our small group and like if they're like exploring faith, like we wanna actually explore faith and give them something actually challenging, um, and have a hard conversation, not just a like Christian platitude.

Nick Clason (20:24):
And I was, I was actually, I was watching a show last night, uh, a house flipping show, um, and this couple is having a smaller wedding, um, and they're doing it in like a newly renovated and remodeled house. And so, you know, of course like the, the whole premise of the show is will these people renovate in this house, get it done in time for the wedding? And um, they were talking about like how this house, it's an old, is gonna be a renovated Victorian style house. So for those of you who are not super up on your HGTV of Victorian is, um, smaller rooms, um, and like just really ornate and elaborate kind of like decor. Um, but like not the whole open concept kind of idea. And so as these people were touring through the house, like, Oh, this would be good for our friends to have these smaller rooms, these smaller, more intimate gatherings so that people can actually stop and pause and have conversations with one another.

Nick Clason (21:37):
And that, that honestly was kind of the impetus for this hot take this morning cuz I was like, Wow, like those, I mean, they're, they're younger, right? Like they're probably in their twenties getting married, maybe thirties. Um, and they, you know, they got a little bit more of like an eclectic kind of vibe to 'em. But the reality is, is as like, I do think that that is far more what people are looking for. They're looking for intimacy, they're looking for connection over content. And so the big room gatherings were a content dump. It would get everybody in. And so that the pastor could deliver his content in the most efficient way possible, the most efficient way possible was to have a large auditorium and crams many people into that large auditorium as you can so that they all could hear what the pastor has to say.

Nick Clason (22:34):
Guys like that is, that is no longer the most efficient way possible. Is it effective still? Perhaps? Uh, but there's a greater efficiency out there, right? A pastor can talk into a microphone in his closet much like I'm doing right now and deliver that same level of content. So then if that has more efficiency, then what is the purpose of the Sunday morning gathering? And I know like, I'm a pastor, I get it theologically, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, let us not give up meeting together as somewhere in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching and you're like, that's the, that's the reason for the church gathering. And I would agree. I honestly though, like I'm not, no offense, like I've been at this church now for a month. Um, so I've been to, uh, I think a total of three, maybe four weekends, Sunday morning services.

Nick Clason (23:34):
Like I don't, I have to work, right? So like, uh, soon as the first service is over, I'm actually, I've, I've actually never been in the service long enough to be dismissed from it. I've slipped out every single week, uh, because I need to get over to student ministry section of the building to be ready for our thing, right? I don't talk to anybody really in the service. Like that encouragement, that admonishment that spurring me on like the, the Sunday morning gathering is, is not when that is taking place. Listen, I'm also, I'll be honest with you too, I'm a traditionalist. I enjoy that. But what is, who is it for? I think in a lot of ways it might actually be for the ego of the pastor. Um, I think I've mentioned this on here before, but at our last church, um, we saw a higher, um, percentage of engagement with students when we offered a smaller gathering.

Nick Clason (24:36):
Um, and we saw a better value in conversation with students in their smaller groups as opposed to in a large, a large scale gathering. I think, you know, we still saw success in the larger scale gatherings because kids like to come together. They still like to have fun together, they still like to play games together. Um, and so that obviously that's important. That fun is a value too, right? Um, but I, I remember telling a friend of mine who said, if I want to come back together, um, and bring everyone back together in the room, like I want to do that if I'm honest, like that's a value of mine. Like I enjoy that. However, if this talking about the small group system and setting is more effective, more efficient, um, and more what students want than I need to put my ego and my pride on the alter and be willing to offer to students what's better for them, even if it's a not, not what I want.

Nick Clason (25:42):
Alright? So let's put purpose over preference and then b um, I have to be willing to level up and train my, my leaders and my volunteer team to execute this plan or this play. Um, and it's gonna take more work on my part to develop them as leaders, uh, than just bring them all back together and we preach a message at them from, from the stage, right? Again, if that's what I want and that's what's easier, but it's not. What's better then? Let's actually give our students what's best. Why not? Because we're trying to be effective grow numbers. Look at metrics because we want students to have a meaningful encounter with the God of the universe to come to a knowing, saving knowledge and relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the way back to the Father is he says in John chapter 14, He's the way, he's the truth, he's the wife.

Nick Clason (26:44):
And if big events are hindrance to that or a Gen Z eye roll, like, uh, another one of these again, then let's not give it to him. Let's give them what they're going to use for the betterment of their faith in the betterment of the, their friends' faith as their friends try to explore what it looks like and means to follow Christ. Well, hey everyone, uh, hope you enjoyed today's episode. Tried a little bit of a different format here. It's, it's tough. Hang on to alo pod, like I said. So I wanted to give a couple of kind of hot takes and just, uh, express what to my heart where I'm coming from. So if you enjoyed it, let us know. Um, rate review. You can go to hybridministry.xyz. We are also on Twitter. I'm gonna try to start, um, being a little more active on there beyond just posting when episodes drop. So come over, give us a follow, come hang out with us. It's at hybrid ministry on Twitter. And, uh, love hanging out with you guys. Uh, let us know, uh, reach out, let us know if there's anything you'd like to hear specifically. And, um, until the next time, talk soon. Bye.