Matt Reed owns a film agency that uses cameras to tell stories. In today’s episode he explains how ministries and churches can increase their impact and raise more money by effectively sharing their story through photos and videos.
Website: https://thirtystory.com
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Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Matt Reed owns a film agency that uses cameras to tell stories. In today’s episode, he explains how ministries in churches can increase their impact and raise more money by effectively sharing their story through photos and video,
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:17):
Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:53):
Welcome To the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a special guest, Matt Reed. Thank you so much for being on the podcast with me. Thanks for having me. So we are in the nation of Sierra Leone and we have just finished a wonderful week of ministry here, and you have come at the invitation of will Jones with awakening ministries international as a videographer to capture the story of what God did here in this nation with your video camera. And so you have a passion for telling stories with your video camera. Tell me, how did that start for you?
Matt Reed (01:36):
I think early on, you know, it kind of came out of our ministry within the local church. So we have served in a number of capacities, my wife and I both do video. And so that’s when I say we it’s usually myself and Jill. So you know, we, a few years ago helped with the church plant. We were associate pastors and in charge of youth, but then they added on a little here and a little there and say, Hey, can we do video announcements and start to tell, you know, video testimonies? And they put a camera in my hand and once they put the camera in my hand, it just, for both of us, it just something sparked, you know what I mean? It was just, we were pretty excited about what we’re doing and being creative with capturing stories, but also creating some fun content for video announcements.
Matt Reed (02:18):
And that’s kind of the spark as far as where it started as far as using video in a ministry context, but we’ve always had a mission’s heart, my wife and I for a number of years we both went to school you know, kind of grew up, sorry, grew up in church and both had kind of a call to missions, but we knew it would be non traditional. We never felt like, you know, when people said, Hey, w what do you feel called to? We said, we feel called to missions. I said, where do you want to go? You know, we just never felt like there’s one place. So we’ve maybe in more non-traditional role, but we never really felt like we knew what that would look like until about 10 years into our ministry at this local church, it kind of hit us like seeing missionaries come in and share what they’re doing.
Matt Reed (03:01):
And they’re in their con in their church, in their countries. Some of them were amazing with their presentations and others would, would get up and they’d have PowerPoints that needed a little help, you know? And it was just this like this, I dunno, this intersection of like seeing the need to share stories of what God is doing all over the world and partnering with video. And that was kind of the spark of what we wanted to do. And so when we resigned from the church after about five years from there, we I work at the district office as the sons of God in Minnesota on a part-time basis. And we kind of started a side hustle, which was a passion project, was, was doing video creating videos. And that’s where a 30 story the company kind of came about. And from there we’ve really partnered with a lot of nonprofits, and we’ve tried to be really intentional about partnering with missionaries, especially from Minnesota and helping tell their stories and stories of, of the, the, the churches on the ground, the people that they’re ministering to over the last few years,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:04):
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is a thousand pictures. So it must be worth even more. Why is it important to tell the story about what God is doing using pictures and videos? You know what I feel like
Matt Reed (04:25):
Video just really, really captures an essence of reality that you, you know, even more so than just telling the story. I feel like the cool thing about video is that you can create, you can hear the sounds of what’s around you and you know what I mean? And and you can create wide shots to kind of see like what the environment looks like or in a church. And you can see people at the altars and at the core of it, I think people can really connect with that because they can see themselves in that, in that video here, in a sense, you know, there’s, as we’ve traveled the world, you know, there’s obviously a lot of differences in cultures and the way that, that you know, countries varied all over the world, but at the same time, the core of who we are, we’re not that different. And I feel like when you put that on video and you see people and you’re telling stories, and you’re seeing the emotion on people’s faces hearing how they are reacting to the gospel and seeing that like it’s impactful. And you realize, like, I remember when I was there, I remember when I was at the altar, you know, at youth camp and when God called me and I feel like there’s a connection there, what you can see and hear and experience through video. That’s just really powerful.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:40):
You’ve been around a lot of churches. You’ve seen a lot of missionaries and missions organizations. What would you say are some of the common mistakes that people make when it comes to communication? That’s a really good question.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:00):
And why is it important for people to invest in quality presentation of pictures and video, and really communicating the story of what God is doing?
Matt Reed (06:11):
That’s good. I’ll go back to the original, like the spark within the local church. You know, we would see basically there’s two types of presenters whenever they come in and present a project or whatever they were doing missionally you’d see one where they would get up and probably they’d have a lack of stories. You know, they would just be really heavy on statistics and just the demographics of the country and all that stuff is good, but they might lack the stories on the flip side, you’ll have the other, you know, another presenter who has a really a 92nd video that tells a story and they get up and they share. And for 30 seconds set up the video, play the video. And at the end of the video, they just give an offering and it’s like response just as tenfold, what the other person was. That was kind of what we saw. We saw like all or nothing. You know what I mean? And I think the key is just telling stories. You got to really focus in on stories.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:08):
Yeah. Everyone who listens to this podcast is an evangelist missionary. They’re excited about sharing the gospel, but in order to do that, you need to raise money and you need to communicate with partners and friends and ask them to invest in, in what you’re doing. Like in my ministry, we ask people to give at least a dollar a month, just if you can just give $1 a month, you can help us reach at least one person for Jesus with that dollar. And so we’re always asking people and telling the stories and how does having pictures and videos help with the fundraising efforts?
Matt Reed (07:48):
Well, it really, I mean, it paints a picture, you know, it paints a picture of what you’re doing. And especially if, even if it’s at the very minimal, like you have a story use an example from this week, you know, one of the guys that helped us with video, his name is Dolakha. She is a Muslim. And at first I didn’t know that, you know, we’re just talking about video and we’re both at the beginning of the week where we have a camera in our hands, each of us, and we’re helping each other out and we’re getting different angles and, you know, shooting all day and together. And we began to talk, you know telling each other’s background, you know, and found out he’s a Muslim. And he’s been working in churches, he’s got a Christian friend, Tony G who was there helping us too.
Matt Reed (08:30):
And another pastor who’s already been speaking into his life and just seeing that he has an openness. So it was just kinda cool to see that. And, you know, through that throughout the course of the week, you know, there’s an opportunity then for him, he, you know, he’s experiencing everything of every service and every outreach, and he’s hearing the gospel over and over again, and he’s seeing people healed and he’s seeing people come to Christ. He’s seeing a man show up at the, at these outreaches. And I remember, you know, I think you were doing the healing service the one evening and asked for people to come forward. And he kind of was on the edge kind of holding us back, you know, and, and I just kind of walked up to him and just said, Hey, you know, do you need prayer?
Matt Reed (09:12):
You know, look, he’s like, yeah, I have pain in my back. Cause I let’s, let’s go forward. Let’s go forward. Let’s just pray. I’ll pray with you. And so I prayed with them and it was like nothing fancy, you know, just learn to pray, halos back. And, and that was it. You know, we walked away, I think that was Tuesday night, Wednesday night maybe. And I didn’t find out until when was baptisms was seven Saturday. Yeah. I didn’t find out until he got, well, he got baptized on, on, on Saturday which sort of been Wednesday that we prayed for him. So he gave his life to Christ sometime in between then Wednesday and Saturday got baptized on Saturday and then other celebration service on Saturday afternoon, he shares a story of how, like, you know, the groundwork that was laid through his friend, Tony and, and his pastor MC and, and just seeing everything that God was doing through, through him and in his life this week. And then he mentioned that, you know, when I prayed for him, like 15 minutes later that, you know, God had taken away that pain that he had had for nine months in his back. And it was just one of the things that was just like, God is real.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:17):
Yeah. So for him, it was a combination of being in our services five or six services a day, all week long, hearing the gospel presentation over and over again, and then going up for prayer, receiving a healing in his back, what a tremendous testimony. And then what a tremendous thing, when he came to you and said, Hey, I want to be baptized with the people who have given their lives to Christ. It’s a, it’s a huge victory.
Matt Reed (10:41):
And I used that as an example of a story that I can tell without pictures, but I mean, even at the very least, you know, I just took a selfie with that, right. Just take a picture of me and Del cushion. Like even if I can accent that story with an image and people can see his face and see his smile and see it look into his eyes and realize, Oh, here’s a guy who’s impacted by Christ. You know, at the very minimal, you know, even just a picture of someone I think can go, you know, like, is that a picture’s worth a thousand words. And if I can accent with a story like that, you know, of transformation, what God did in a week and in a life of Dulcie dish. That’s awesome. And how much more that I had video all week of him, you know what I mean? Like I have video of him getting baptized. I have video of him sharing his own testimony. I didn’t expect him to share a testimony either, you know, and, but how much more powerful is that story going forward, knowing that in his own words, I’ve captured on video, what God did in his life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:36):
And he’s in almost every shot you made because he was there taking pictures and you were probably trying to avoid them to figure out a way to get a shot without the other cameraman in the shot.
Matt Reed (11:47):
So you say that because like you said, this, this story’s powerful in and of itself, but if I add an image, how much more powerful, and if I add video, wow. And even in his own words, like it’s just layer upon layer that can add depth to the story.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:02):
Yeah. I think sometimes evangelists get really enamored with pictures of big crowds in numbers. It’s saying we had X number of people saved and there’s competition. Like we got this number of people saved. How many did your crusade get people saved? But often I think that only evangelists really connect with the picture of the big crowd. Other people really connect with the story of the individual whose whose life was changed. And so like on our website, we always put the picture of the big crowd, but I always try to find that story one in a million, because we’re, we’re trying to reach a million people for Jesus every year, but I really want to highlight that one in a million. And when you’re talking about numbers, it’s important to remember that every number represents an individual whose life was changed in through story. You can highlight some of those stories of what Jesus has done in individual’s lives.
Matt Reed (13:00):
Yeah. In a way it’s just to piggyback on that. You know, I, I run social media for our assemblies of God in Minnesota and a couple of other nonprofits. And what we find on social media is that the greatest engagement is usually when it’s a picture of an individual or maybe two people. If you post a crowd, picture engagement, drops, you know, if you’re posting a promotion engagement traps, but the moment you show like a child or, you know, in your church or a volunteer in your church, active in ministry, your engagement goes up and that’s what people connect with. Cause people it’s harder for people everyday people to connect with a crowd or to connect with even a worship team or, you know, a group of people. But when you, when you can show them create a connection with one, you know, with one person that’s something that really resonates.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:55):
So you have a business and with your business, you help nonprofits to tell their stories. If someone wants more information about you or wants to connect with you, what’s your website. What’s a good way for them to connect.
Matt Reed (14:09):
Yeah. They can connect with us@thirtystory.com and that’s all spelled out 30 story.com and yeah, just reach out our emails on their contact form. We’d love to connect.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:21):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. And what we found is that as we go to different nations of the world, it takes us an average of about $1 for every person we’re able to reach with the gospel. And so some countries are more expensive. Some countries are a little bit less expensive, but on average, we’ve invested about $1 for every we’re able to lead to Jesus. So today I’m asking you to go to my website, King ministries.com and give $1, $2, $5, become a monthly partner, help us to lead people to Jesus. Imagine you can start a party in heaven with just $1. Also go to Apple iTunes, leave us a review for the evangelism podcast with Daniel King. So lots of people can find this evangelism podcast. God bless
Evangelism Podcast Host (15:19):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit King ministries.com. Again, that’s King ministries.com.
