“Is it worth it?” Have you ever asked that question? If you work with the media of the church, you undoubtedly have asked that questions before. The church graphics are not produced in minutes. Videos for your ministry are usually not produced in a day or two. Websites are not created in a night. Creating media for a church or ministry is not an easy or a quick task.
Maybe you can relate with this, it’s 3:00a.m. in the morning, you are on your 4th all-nighter in a row, and you are running on coffee, energy drinks, or a combination of both. You feel like giving up, and you ask the question (either to yourself or those you are with)…”Is it worth it?” Is it worth the sleep deprivation? Is it worth the neglect to other parts of your life? You haven’t really seen your family in days, except as you are coming and going…Is it worth it? Is this video/website/design really worth it? Before you answer that, I’d like you to read a few testimonies of how God has used church media to influence and/or change people’s lives in ministries around the country.
Seemingly forever ago (2007), I began drafting and engineering First Baptist Church’s first full-featured website. In spite of being in the Age of Information, our web presence was lacking and needed life support. Single and arrested by eagerness and ambition, I began sprinting 110 miles-an-hour. There were many days I spent countless hours late at night meticulously designing, coding, debugging, and learning and living on one meal a day with a few hours of sleep. These kinds of days became weeks and weeks became months. Soon enough, this website started to feel like a never-ending project. The more I progressed, the more I realized I had more to do.
Frustration crept in, and on occasion I’d ask myself, “Why am I doing this? Is this even worth my time? This church has been around for 100 years with no website. No one’s even gonna care!” However, I kept plugging away.
A few hundred hours later, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The website went live and things haven’t been the same ever since. I came to realize over the next several months that hundreds and sometimes thousands of people every week depend on our website to be encouraged, get updated, and hear and watch the Word of God preached during our weekly services and yearly conferences such as Pastors’ School and Youth Conference. Through our website, tens of thousands and maybe even hundreds of thousands of people have heard the Gospel, been encouraged and infused, made life-changing decisions, and been influenced and touched by God and His Word. The countless hours of work, the sleepless nights, the ramen noodles for dinner…
It was worth it. It was worth it.
Jonathan Suh
First Baptist Church – Hammond, IN
I will always remember the first full-length book Pastor Sexton asked me to help him design and produce. When he told me that he wanted to begin producing books on a regular basis, I remember being rather overwhelmed. I remember how helpless I felt as I did not have any experience in producing a book. I really wanted to help Pastor accomplish his vision of producing this book by putting on paper what he had envisioned in his mind. With a heart to help the pastor, I dove in head-first.
As with any project, there were many revisions and many other technical bumps in the road, but God had given Pastor the desire to produce this and other Sunday School material to be a help to others––I wanted to be a part of it all. Of course, there were moments when I wondered if it would come to pass, but with the Lord’s help, the first of many full-length books was produced. Now, these many years later, I look back on that time and am truly grateful to God for the opportunity to be involved in helping the pastor accomplish what God had given him to do.
All of us in the Lord’s work need to remember that no task is too small, and that, if God has given us something to do for Him, it is worth the labor. Being in the work of the Lord is wonderful and it is sometimes easy to get weary in the work, but we must never be weary of the work. God not only knows the work we are doing, but also the labor that is involved. IT IS WORTH IT!!!
Stephen Troell
Temple Baptist Church – Knoxville, TN
(Currently on deputation to the Mission Field)
We created a video about the bus ministry for our national Pastors’ Conference. We wanted to encourage people not give up on the bus ministry. Many people have given up on this ministry, thinking it no longer works. We spent weeks gathering the testimonies, pictures, videos, and music for the video. As the conference approached we spent many all-nighters working on the video. We literally lived off coffee.
At times we were very frustrated with the progress of the video, but God brought it all together at the last minute. After we showed the video, we were amazed at how God used it. Scores of churches have asked to show it in their church. We have had churches that contacted us saying they started a bus ministry after watching the video. Many bus workers have said they wept through the entire video, because they were wanting to quit but realized the bus ministry still works. While we were working on the video, it didn’t seem like it was worth it. However, God used (and is still using) the video for His glory.
North Valley Baptist Church Media Team – Santa Clara, CA
www.busministryworks.com
I have a folder in my Mail app that is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of emails from people all over the world, who have been helped and blessed by the media ministry of North Valley Baptist Church. That is not a testimony to me, but rather a testimony to the fact that God can and will use the project you are working on.
Remember, you are not working on that church media project so people will be impressed at your skill, but rather to bring honor and glory to God. So, the next time it’s 3:00a.m., you’re about to give up, and you ask, “Is it worth it?” Pray and ask God for strength and wisdom…then answer the questions, “Yes!”
Can you relate? I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or testimonies. Share them below so others can be encouraged as well.