Let's face it. We gather people and organize events in our church to connect church families and guests. But when we create events, are we doing them with a next step in mind or how "great" the event can be?

We invite JJ Yount on the broadcast alongside Adi Coe, who both serve at First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia. As a seasoned student pastor and associate pastor, JJ shares some of his processes for helping events be next-step generators in our discipleship pipeline throughout his ministry and as the student pastor at First Redeemer. Adi serves on the team with JJ connecting women at First Redeemer and the community in discipleship. In this episode, the team talks about the following:

• How do we communicate and promote events?
• All events start with how the church views the events in general.
• What makes the engine of your church go, and how do you make it go faster?
• Are your events just for evangelism, or could they also do discipleship?
• Who are you trying to bring in, and what action must they take?
• Do something exciting they haven't done before but know your strategy beforehand.
• Someone who has never been to church and doesn't have a relationship with the church, and it's hard not to see it from their view if they have been raised there.
• It's like Marketing 101: Your internal language needs to be rethought and get out of the bubble of the church.
• The same event doesn't translate into different contexts, so know your demographic and the people you want to reach.
• Where do you start trying to make your church more diverse?
• Dig into what the community needs. People know when it's not genuine.
• God loves creativity!
• JJ visited Africa. Noticed that some of the negative impacts are when we go in and try to make churches in Africa like US churches, they lose the culture. We are not there to create a US church.
• How can we figure out what culturally matters to that person so we can meet them where they are and meet their need?
• Every human wants to belong, but they belong differently, and you must also see this at your events. Train leaders to see this too.
• The win is the people who move on to the next stage (i.e., joining a small group, etc.).
• Pre- and Post-Checklist