4 Cheap Digital Tools for Small Churches

The average church is 73 people. If you pastor a smaller church or a church plant, resources and money can be tight. Here is a list of cheap digital tools. Last week, I posted 4 free digital tools for small churches.

• Soundstripe--This is a yearly subscription for music that you can use for videos and podcasts. We pick theme music for each new series and then put that as the background to a sermon bumper, series trailer/invite, podcast introduction, and sermon quote videos. Having professional music that you are licensed to use is awesome and totally worth $135 per year. If you make your own creative, then this makes everything fast, professional, and short. Above is an example of a sermon bumper we did this fall.
• Breeze ChMS--This is a simple, powerful, and cheap Church Management Software. This helps you keep track of people, events, giving, etc. A few things we do with it: plan volunteer schedules, track attendance, keep a list of guests so we can invite them back at holidays or for a new series, track giving, etc. This is $50 per month. I know there are other programs. But I like the $50 a month and the fact that it is simple but powerful. It is worth it to sign up volunteers alone.
• Adobe Creative Cloud--This is a suite of products that allow you to edit video, photos, graphics, and audio and create so many types of media. If you want to do much online (and you should) you need to get this for yourself and your team. Get a non-profit license from Adobe for $20 a month for the first year and $30 a month for every year after that. It is so worth it. You will save time and be able to create great graphics, videos, podcasts, etc. I can edit the sermon into a podcast and cut a quote video with captions and soundtrack within 30 minutes on a Sunday afternoon. I've tried other video editing software, and it is a disaster. This saves so much time and creates so many possibilities. I don't do most of our designing, but I do edit videos. And I learned on YouTube. You can too.
• Libsyn--You need a podcast yesterday. People want to hear the preacher. Maybe they missed the sermon or they want to know what kind of preaching they will hear if they come to your church. For $15 a month, this website hosts your audio and makes sure that it shows up in podcast players, Spotify, etc.