The Power of Open
I’ve noticed an interesting trend in the last several years: ministries and organizations becoming much more open with their resources. This is in contrast, of course, to how things used to be.
For example, Pastor Rick Warren has always sold his sermons online. In fact, you could go to his website right now, Saddleback Resources, and you could buy sermons from almost twenty years ago. I’m not saying it’s an evil practice. Tons of pastors have been helped because they’ve been able to have access to quality sermons.
But a few years ago I noticed a few organizations doing things differently. Lifechurch.tv, one of the largest churches in North America began giving away their resources. For free. All of their resources through LifeChurch.tv Open. So you could go to their website right now and download, not just the manuscripts to the sermons, but also the intro videos, corresponding small group studies. Everything they have, they’re making it available. They even have materials for the children’s programs and other stuff that they’ve made available. Quite impressive.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church began doing the same thing. They’re opening all of their resources up.
Why are they doing this?
Well, it seems like there’s been a different current and change of mindset happening. They say they’re doing it for one main reason: because they want to bless the kingdom. God has blessed them, so they’re giving it all away.
Wow.
Here’s the text from the resources page at Elevation Church:
No one is better than everyone. And once you tuck that one away in the back of your mind, you’ll see how great it feels to have a little help. We’ve learned so much along the way from the people who have gone before us. Sometimes we copied until we could do it better, and now we’re doing our best to help create original content whenever we can.
And we’re making it all available to you. Look around, see what you can use and help yourself.
The assets we have available are listed. If you don’t see the particular asset under the series you’re exploring, we may not have it. For example, before we were making trailers and series bumpers, we were throwing up still graphics.
Oh, and by the way. A lot of mega church pastors “borrow” from each other as well. So don’t feel bad. If you look at the two links provided you’ll see some similarities in their resources. If a mega-church pastor has a particularly effective series, you’ll notice other mega church pastors will eventually use it as well.
So in case you didn’t know about these resources wanted to let you know about them. They just may save you in an emergency.
p.s if anyone ever wants anything that I’ve ever done, you’re more than welcome to have at it. As long as it’s not a copyrighted resource that I’ve purchased, I’d be happy to give it away…for a small fee…just kidding.
What about you? Have you ever used any of these resources? What was your experience like?Does anyone know of any other resources out there?
[image by hannabear]
Related posts:
Wow. It's Quiet Here...
Be the first to start the conversation!