As a Christian leader, you want to give value to the people you’re leading. You want your events, your blog posts, your words, to be edifying and uplifting to the women who attend your event or read your blog or listen to your podcast.

So how do you really give VALUE as a leader?

DETERMINE WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS

Think about yourself a year ago…or even five years ago. Did you go through something difficult? What was God teaching you? What do you wish you had during that time?

The past you, is the place someone else is RIGHT NOW. You have been through things in your life that you can guide others through. God has entrusted you with obstacles and struggles so that you could use those struggles to reach others.

Think specific. Think of a person in your life that you love and want to help. And then talk right to them. Write or speak like you are speaking to that one friend. Those are the times when God’s light shines through us the best, when we’re vulnerable and open. The way we are with a friend.

WRITE OUT WHO YOUR MISSION FIELD IS

Be intentional about the people that you want to reach.

If you’ve been following this series, then you may be tired of hearing this, but you have to know who you want to minister to. Once you have an idea, then narrow it down.

Yup. I said narrow it down.

Now, narrow it down again. The truth is that when you’re talking to only one person, you will relate to many. If you try to generalize hurts or struggles or even lessons, your work won’t speak to anyone.

TRY TO TALK TO EVERYONE, AND YOU’LL SPEAK TO NO ONE

That’s why it’s important to get specific. If you try and talk to everyone, you’ll speak to no one.

Don’t be afraid to get too specific, you’re not excluding anyone. What you’re doing is reaching people where they are. Remember, what’s personal is universal.

You have a purpose with your writing and/or speaking. You want to establish yourself as someone who is authentic and knows and loves the Lord, someone other women can trust. Just because you’re limiting yourself now doesn’t mean you can’t add on topics later.

Imagine if you shared a post about having an eating disorder, for example. A women finds the post and reads it, crying the whole time. She feels like she knows you. She sees how you’ve overcome it and now she has hope that she can overcome it too.

So she decides to look through your website to get other great tools on overcoming her issues with food. But because you’re trying to be everything to everyone, she finds a post about you and your dog, the next post is about dealing with babies who are teething, the next post is sharing about traveling on a missions trip.

That women is going to leave your blog feeling like she doesn’t really know you after all.

But imagine if that same woman finished reading your post, and when to the next post talking about how God cares about eating issues, the next posts she finds a group you’ve created for women who struggle with that. She joins the group, and is able to really be ministered to because you were SPECIFIC.

Focus on doing one thing well and then add from there. Once you’ve established a platform, your audience can grow with you.

WRITING A GOOD BLOG POST

If you want to start a blog, the first thing you need to do is not signing up for a domain and all that jazz.

You need to start by thinking and praying about the message you want to share.

Do you want to reach moms with special needs, ministry leaders, health?

Next come up with ten blog post topics to write about.

Now WRITE! Create about ten blog posts to put onto your website when it’s ready.

HOW TO CREATE A VALUABLE BLOG POST

DON’T SKIMP ON THE CONTENT

You need to give people what they want! When someone finds your post, you want to make sure that you’re giving them tons of value. I’d recommend anywhere from 1000-1500 words per post. I know it seems like a lot, but remember, there is where the ministry part comes in.

Think of a pastor. What if you got ready for church, and the worship team sang half a song, then the pastor got up and spoke for 5 minutes. No one would like that! I doubt anyone would come back the following week.

We want to make sure that we’re pouring into people. Be intentional about your posts, make sure you’re sharing good and in depth content.

*SIDE-NOTE: As a bonus, Google and other search engines still focus on words for search rankings, so the more relevant words you have on your site, the better you’ll do in searches!

USE IMAGES

Create beautiful and corresponding images for each of your posts. A free tool you can use is called Canva.com. Canva actually has exact dimensions for social media images that will fit a variety of places. You can create an image and then repurpose that image to post on your social media sites.

I would also recommend that you come up with a color scheme and logo that you use on every image. You want to create a image that people will automatically recognize as something YOU created. Once someone has been to your site, if they see another image that is similar, they’ll remember their last visit and are more likely to visit again.

GIVE SOMETHING AWAY

Another way you can give value as a Christian leader is by giving something away for free. In the marketing world, this is called an opt-in, or a lead magnet.

Basically, you are giving someone a more in-depth resource in exchange for their email address. When people give you their email address, it’s another level of impact that you have with them. You can have a list of email addresses of women who want to hear from you and are giving you an opportunity to speak into their lives on a regular and more intimate basis.

Things you can offer for free might be a free ebook, a video series, a tool that helps them implement a lesson you’ve taught, access to a free library of resources, or even a free course like this one. {LINK to Graceful balance}

GET COMFORTABLE WITH VIDEO

This one may be tough, but if you want to extend your reach and your impact, you have to get comfortable with video.

Video is the best way to get to build trust with the people you’re ministering to. Think of the difference between radio preachers and television preachers. You just feel like you know someone better when you can see them talk to you.

This is a big step, but public speaking (even on video) is honestly a skill you need to master as a Christian leader and influencer.

THE NEXT STEP

If you want to learn more about using writing or a blog as a ministry tool, but aren’t sure where to start, then check out this course, Your Passion HIS Purpose.